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Third slipjoint, larger than the rest. Kicked my butt six different ways, and again, I learned what NOT to do. I'll carry it for a week or so just to see how it works out. Not real happy with the action....

Kurt,
That shield ornamentation is superb! I wish I could incorporate something like that into briar...

flix wrote:Kurt,
That shield ornamentation is superb! I wish I could incorporate something like that into briar...

Inlays aren't hard to do in wood, even something as hard as briar. Now in G-10...

Kurt, how'd this one differ from the others? Just the liners? I'm getting closer to trying one of these, I'm just too much of a hammerhead to buy precision-ground flat stock and I don't have a surface grinder to insure those nice tight tolerances.

No matter, this one turned out lookin' pretty good!

flix wrote:Kurt,
That shield ornamentation is superb! I wish I could incorporate something like that into briar...

Inlays aren't too difficult to do, just fiddly. They're best done to a flat surface, that way there's less to account for. Basically I held the inlay down with a tiny clamp and scribed around it, then using my dremel I cut out material until it fit. The first one of these I did was way sloppy, but for this one I switched to a 1/32" cylindrical diamond cutter to fine-tune everything after hogging to the right depth with a simple ball cutter.

Alan L wrote: Kurt, how'd this one differ from the others? Just the liners? I'm getting closer to trying one of these, I'm just too much of a hammerhead to buy precision-ground flat stock and I don't have a surface grinder to insure those nice tight tolerances.

No matter, this one turned out lookin' pretty good!

Thanks!

This one uses liners, but instead of washers I tried for relieving the liners around the tang area. Frankly, until I get a benchtop mill, that's not going to happen again. It's basically impossible to do mechanically without one. I considered using my etcher to remove material around a mask as I've seen a couple guys do, but didn't - possibly I should have. It would have taken less time anyway. The action on this isn't crisp like the last one I made that used washers, and feels very muddy and vague, even with PTFE-infused lubricant. Beyond that, I'm actually very happy with the knife - just the walk-n-talk is crappy.

BTW: I've got the folding seax laid out digitally - I just have to decide on materials and come up with some kind of pattern-welded steel.