Pocket Knife - #1 The Start

Knife Kit

Some time ago as I was putting together an order for hardware and other miscelanious items not available around here my total order was just short of getting a 10% discount.  Going through the catalog one more time I came across something that I had been wanting to try and put together – a pocket knife, something I had never done.    In looking at the kits available this one seemed to have the metal work mostly done and was ready for the scales (handles) to be added.  It fit what I wanted, the parts were all out of stainless steel and the size while a little larger than ideal would work out well.  Adding it to the order brought me over the 10% discount threshold and made the knife net kit cost of less than $5.  Good news is that if I spoil the kit up I won’t be out a lot.

When I received the kit it was obvious that whoever wrote the instructions English was not their first language.  They were good for an overview of the process but painfully shy on details and had an omission that would have made the knife unusable, more on that later.

Digging through my stash of wood scraps I narrowed the scale choice down to cocobolo, figured walnut, lacewood (drum leftovers), ebony and cherry.   I decided on using the cocobolo as it is a dense hard wood and the scrap I had was just the right size.

First step was to align the knife body along the grain of the wood so it flows pretty much through the center of the piece.  Next is to transfer the angle of the bolster where it will meet the cocobolo to the blank.  To do this I set my sliding bevel against the bolster and the edge of the blank.

Sliding Bevel with Angle Set

With the angle set it’s easy to mark it on the cocobolo blank.  On dark woods like this I like to use a white pencil.  It’s easier for me to see than if I had used a normal pencil.  I could have carefully set up my chop saw to cut the angle but since there is so little material to be removed I just used the disk sander.

Angle Transferred to Cocobolo Blank

Next was to cut the blank in half.  Using a marking gauge set close to the center I marked a line from each side.  Now all I have to do is cut between the lines.  Before anybody asks even though the lines on the cocobolo look white but the pencil in the marking gauge is not the reason the lines look white is due to the light reflection from the angle I took the photo.

Cocobolo Blank Marked for Ripping

Moving to the bandsaw I set my guide up and ripped the blank in half.  Now I had left and right scales whose grain matched up on both sides.  Last step here is to take the two pieces and run them through the thickness sander.  This is to remove the rough bandsaw kerf marks and take both pieces down to the exactly the same the same thickness.

Bandsaw Setup to Rip

Because the bolsters are thinner than the scales I had to do some type of transition between them.  I really had two options.  I could put a radius on the edge or chamfer it.  I decided to go with the chamfer.  Now if the end of the handle was a square cut it would have been pretty easy to do but the angle between the bolster and the handle is not square.  My solution was to set up a small jig to hold the piece at a 45-degree angle to the face of my disk sander and at an angle to match the bolster cut end.  Because there was such a small amount of material removed I did not even turn the sander on.  I just spun the disk with my free hand.  It would have been way to easy too overshoot my mark with the disk powered.

Sanding Bevel on Scale

Now that I had the bevel transition done I could move on, right?  Well not so fast there, the disk sander has a very coarse grit and leaves pretty rough surface.  To get to a smooth finished beveled edge required some sanding.  The bevel is less than 1/8” tall and ¾” wide.  As this is going to be closely looked at any deviation from a true flat bevel or a straight line where the bevel and the top of the scale come together would stand out like a big wart on the fairy princess’s nose.

I suppose if you are really good you could hand sand this while not rounding over the edge and keeping the bevel a flat surface.  I was not willing to take that chance so used a fixture to keep things aligned.  This is the tool I use to hold my chisels and plane irons in perfect alignment when I sharpen them.  First is to set the wood in the fixture carefully aligning the bevel and its skew angle so the bevel lays flat on the sandpaper.  Here everything is set up and I am ready to go.  I put chalk on the bevel so I can track the sanding process and make any adjustments.  The chalk really highlights how rough the bevel is.

Second, gently run the fixture back and forth across the sandpaper checking frequently to see that the chalk is being evenly removed from the bevel.  If not this indicates the angle is wrong and needs to be adjusted.

Third, when the chalk is all gone and the bevel smooth you are done.  If the surface is not smooth enough just repeat step 2 on a finer grit sandpaper.  I quit at 220 grit.

Next Up – Cutting, Shaping, Attaching & Finishing