Knifemaking Tuesdays Week 01 - designing and machining the first test blades

I'm taking 1 day a week to focus on my new custom knives, very exciting! Today's project was to figure out how to fully machine a knife blade so that it doesn't have to spend any time on a belt grinder. I made 4 different designs and after a lot of practice I finally figured out how to render a blade profile in Solidworks, now that I have that skill I can design pretty much any shape! This video goes through some of the design process as well as the machining of these 4 little blades.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• custom
• knives
• knife
• knifemaker
• john
• grimsmo
• steel
• machined
• machining
• blade

[triumphmanful]

Where can I get one of those machines. How much do they cost. I am cutting my knives with an angle grinder. Very primitive to say the least! Will my computer handle the program too? I gather its a CAD type program ?

[JohnGrimsmo]

@triumphmanful I built most of the machine, but you're looking at a few grand to do it, $8k+ to buy a CNC mill. It's a CAD program called Solidworks, needs a decently fast computer so it won't steal all your RAM and crash all the time.

[jasonmusic1]

bad ass man! for your gimping a possible solution could be to run a camfer bit fist to start the holes. we do that at the shop where i work yiu grt perfectly centered holes and a chamfer tool is relitively cheap and so usefull for lots of projects.

[JohnGrimsmo]

@jasonmusic1 Thanks!! You're exactly right, since this video I've been using a chamfer mill/drill to start all my holes, that or a centerdrill, and it works great now. As a machinist you'll love some of my other videos, check out Knifemaking Tuesdays Week 05, week 12, and I'm uploading week 14 now that you'll really enjoy.

[hillbillyprepper]

What blade does the 0.04 stepover belong to? At first I thought Warren Thomas but your saying Anso and I cant find it on any of his knives.

[JohnGrimsmo]

@hillbillyprepper I didn't realize it at the time but it's one of Anso's older designs that he doesn't use anymore, I think back in the day he used it a lot. You're right it is very similar to some of Warren Thomas's blades.

[triumphmanful]

I ground out three knives in the time you took to play on your computer!

[triumphmanful]

Nice computer stuff, but when do you start to work with real metal!??

[23davvy]

really cool man!!! happy for you that you have sometime at least for your knives :)

[WeaversofEternity]

SO PRO! Your videos are awesome, I learn so much from them. Peace!