Fredeen Blades

hey graham i haven't seen anything new from you in a while, got any in the works or is life getting in the way? I got a new one almost done i thought i would say thanks because i used a lot of the info you gave me on this one. Its for a friend and he is buying it. I'll post some pics in about a week i would like your critisizem (good or bad). Its by far my best work and i feel its worth what he is paying me. Some flaws but they are pretty minor.

Jason

Life always seems to get in the way of what I'd like to do in the shop (which would be to be out there "full time"), however I still get a few moments in the shop every so often, so I always have a ton of things in the works (they just take forever to finish with my schedule  ).

Lets see... here's a short list:

A couple of big bowies (9" blades) in 1095, which should hopefully have some nice hamon when all is said and done.

2 Raindrop pattern damascus knives (a hunter and a smaller utility)

A W pattern fighter (rough forged and ready for grinding)

A billet that is through the first welding and has been drawn out. Ready to be cut and restacked to form a basket weave pattern.

Another little experimental damascus blade (guess it would be a skinner or small hunter)

Another billet that has been cut and stacked and ready for the initial welding... not sure on the pattern yet... thinking of just trying something "different" and in the realm of mosaic patterning.

I've got another integral bolster knife that is pretty much done. Its been sitting around the shop since last August and is the big brother to the other two integral bolster knives I did at the same time. However the little guys havent sold yet, so I havent felt a big rush to try and finish the big one. Just needs a few more hours of hand rubbing and its done though.

And of course always damascus rings. Turning them out, and have an experimental ring billet welded up to try some different patterning with.

Here are some random pictures of various things. The most recent comission, some rings, and the W pattern billet (that is now a rough forged knife blade).

http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m284/TarAlderion/AmboynaEDC1.jpg

http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m284/TarAlderion/AmboynaEDC2.jpg

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http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m284/TarAlderion/Wpatternbillet002.jpg

Feel free to post your work here. I'll give you my honest opinion of it, and I promise that all criticisms will be constructive in nature.

Before i can get this knife all finished i got one last step (well now 2 because this didn't work and i have to reapply the danish oil). I'm shooting for a water proof handle so i used Danish oil let it cure for 48 hours then i tried to apply CA glue for the final seal and a glossy finish. The glue didn't work at all, it turned milky and ugly. I applied it with a dry brush in many thin layers, what happened??? Any tips on how to do this or should i forget CA glue all together? I was thinking of using epoxy but i don't know if it will buff nice.

Jason

ok so i've been thinking about this a little more and since my knife has walnut scales that shouldn't show as much wear and i already have 1 QT of danish oil at home i'm thinking of doing just an oil finish. I know you've told me you don't often do much more then an oil finish on your knives so i was wondering whats the best way to do this. This is an outdoor camper/chopper so it needs to have some water resistance and thats about all i'm really looking for. If you could share you thoughts on the best way to accomplish this with oil that would be great.

Also on a side note i want you to know that i always research my questions before wasting someones time with them. I've looked this up lots and can't seem to find the exact info i need. I only ask someone when i can't find the answer or maybe a specific part of the answer.

thanks

Jason

Hey Jason,

Sorry for the lack of reply, I normally try to jump on responses right away, but I've been slammed with work so haven't gotten the chance.

As far as your CA issues, that could be caused by any number of things or a combination of them.

Here are some possibilities I can think of:

You are using a cheap super glue. Some of the cheap stuff doesn't cure with the right finish.

You are using glue which is too thick/applying it too thick to start with

Humidity

The danish oil underneath hasn't cured fully

You are sanding between coats and the scratches from the previous coats are showing through

Or any number of other factors.

Typically with CA finishes, you'll only want to use them on really soft woods that will be seeing heavier use. A rule of thumb is that if you finger nail can easily dent the wood and it will be a knife that will really see some abuse, a CA finish might be applicable. And typically with the CA finishes you generally don't mix them with other finishes. I know wood workers who have done CA finishes on top of things like tung oil without issue, but I'm sure if the oil based finish hasn't cured it won't give good results. Also with "dry" wood the CA actually absorbs into the wood a bit, but if you put it on top of an oil based finish its not going to really absorb into the wood. You can still do a "shell" around the handle, but I don't think it typically works as well or achieves the same durability in the finish. If you want to darken the grain there are water based dyes which could probably be used and still allow the super glue to absorb properly. However normally the natural wood color and grain is sufficient and needs nothing else (the super glue will also make the wood look a little darker, as if wet, so keep that in mind).

For a good CA finish use a high quality CA thats really thin (the watery stuff). Apply a thin coat to the handle and then let it cure sufficiently under something like a lamp, and try to keep humidity away. You can just flood the handle with the CA and then spread it around/wipe off extra with your finger and a rubber glove. If there are large bumps or something in the finish after the first coat has dried, you can lightly sand them down, then its important to really clean off all the dust from the handle (tack cloth works well) and then you can use some debonder to smooth over the surface again and let cure. I wouldn't sand between coats unless there is large unevenness in the thickness. Apply a few coats until it looks sufficient (maybe 3 or 4, hard to say, will depend on how thick you put them on). After all your coats are on, you can use some more of the debonder to go over the top and smooth things out. Then you can sand really with very high grit, and then buff lightly. Caution with the buffing though, you'll want to use a slow speed on the buffer. An actual buffer runs at about 1750 rpm, where a bench grinder is up at 3500 rpm or so, so if you are using a bench grinder as a buffer use extreme caution. If you buff too heavily you'll pull off the CA finish, or if you let it heat up too much etc. You'll want to buff just light enough to gloss over the outer surface, but not heat things up or pull off the CA (hence why a slower buffer works best). I use a scratchless pink compound when I buff my handles (be they CA, stabalized or not). The pink scratchless is not an agressive compound, and it doens't leave residue (a problem when buffing open grain wood).

So there are some ideas for a CA finish. Honestly I don't do them often. I find its better to use stabalized woods in cases where the wood is too soft. You can use epoxy for handle finishes as well. It works about the same, though can be a bit more tricky to apply since its so thick. You'd want to use the faster curing stuff otherwise you'd have to wait days for it to cure. You'd also want to get the epoxy as thin as possible, this means heating up the two parts before mixing them to make them a bit less viscioius. Personally I havent really fooled with epoxy finishes too much. It would also be best to not use an oil finish under the epoxy so it will absorb into your handle wood.

As far as oil finishes, they are pretty straight forward. Just sand your handle down to the desired smoothness and apply the oil as directed on the can. Typically its apply the oil, let sit for 5-10 minutes and then wipe off the extra and buff with a clean cloth, then let dry for a day or two and give another coat, etc until you've got 3 or 4 coats on. I don't know if you typically buff your handles after sanding or not, but if you do, don't buff before oiling, just sand really fine. Buffing can close up the grain and inhibit the oil from absorbing as effectivly. You can buff lightly after you have sufficient coats on, though the handle will shine up on its own a good bit as you apply the oil and buff by hand. Otherwise thats pretty much it. You'll have to re-apply the oil to the handle every so often (once every year or so) depending on how often it is used and in contact with moisture etc. Something else you'll want to do is to raise the grain of the wood before you oil the wood. When wood gets wet it swells and the softer grain expands more and then when it dries the soft swollen grain sticks up giving that rough and dull apperance. Its best to raise the grain yourself before finishing the handle. Its as simple as putting a little water on your finger (we aren't talking much, just enough to wet the surface down) and wetting the handle to raise that outer grain. Then once the grain is raised and the handle is dry, sand off the raised grain. Do this maybe mid-way through your sanding (maybe 400 grit stage or so). By raising the grain and sanding it off you'll help prevent it from swelling in the future if it gets in contact with water.

Walnut is a pretty hard wood, so I don't think the CA will be all that necessary for it.

I would definately recommend that you start using stabalized woods for those woods that would otherwise be too soft to use. Stabalization is the best route to go there. They typically cost a bit more, but its worth it in the long run. Just be careful when working with them as the dust is hazardous to breath (think basically breathing CA and epoxy resin particles) so a respirator is a must (and should be used when doing anything that makes fine dust and particulate).

Hopefully that should give you some ideas on things.

ok so here we go this is my forth knife made from 1084 differentiallyhardened with walnut scales and brass fittings. It has a 320 grit satin finishand oil finished scales. Sold for $150

I would appreciate your opinion of the blade, i posted so many pics soyou could get a good idea of what it looks like beyond just the profile. I haveto say i'm sorry for the poor quality pictures i had no choice but the takethem at night in my apartment. i might also add that the pictures make it seemthe finish isn't great but most of the scratches are really only visible in thepictures and not in normal light on the knife.

I'm pretty happy with this knife and its my best work to date. Thereare a few flaws that ill try to fix on the next knife but they are in myopinion pretty minor. The one major flaw that i'm really mad at myself formessing up is a small depression on one side of the blade just above theplunge. I tried to catch it in one picture where the light is reflecting at aslightly different angle then the rest of the bevel. This mistake made me verymade but it’s almost not noticeable so i can live with it and i know ill nevermake that grinding mistake again!

As knife maker i know your thinking that you can critique my workvisually but the most important aspects of a knife need to tested by hand. Iwould never sell a knife i didn't think would perform, I tested this knifepretty toughly and it performed well. To test the blade first thing i did afterthe final grinding was to do a flex test. I flexed the knife as far as i couldby hand putting the tip in my vise and applying pressure to the very furthestpoint from the tip ( the last 1" or so of the handle) so to optimize theleverage. The knife bent to around 20-25 degrees then returned to true (actually because of the type of heat treat it returned just shy of true, likemaybe 1-2 degrees off center but a quick bend the other direction alwayscorrected it). After the flex test I put a false edge on my knife and using theChristmas tree we still had in the back yard, preceded to chop half way throughit in 2 different spots. I then checked the edge and it was just as sharp withno visible damage so i started chopping through about 8-12 small branches rightwhere they meet the trunk. After this i checked the edge by cutting paper, itperformed almost the exact same as it did before i touched the tree. Afterthese test i felt confident in my knife.

Ok so i gave you all the details i can think of, I really want a tuffcritique (fair but tuff). If you have any questions please ask. Also if youthink i any part of what i explained is wrong please tell me(maybe i didn't doenough testing or the wrong type of testing for example). lastly based on whatyou see and what i told you, do you think my knife is worth what i received? 

http://i901.photobucket.com/albums/ac211/jay71_photo/3%20knife/DSC02093.jpg

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Thanks very much for taking the time to do this is really appreciated

Jason

Alrighty Jason,

Took a couple days for me to get to this since I knew it would be a long post, but here we go.

I think I’ll talk about my impressions regarding the overall shape and design of your knife first. Before I start, I’ll just say that this is purely my opinion regarding flow and knife design and there are many many other opinions about this as can be seen in the vast number of different knife styles and design elements. So there’s no real way to quantify any of this and there will be others who will think differently than what I do, so keep that in mind. Ultimately you will make a knife that looks good to you and that’s the most important thing as a maker.

So, my impressions:

Overall, a decent bolo/camp knife blade. The flow along the edge is good. I don’t personally like the step on the spine. To me that is a detraction from the overall flow of the blade. I’m one who likes graceful flowing lines and connected curves with more subtle transitions. Steps on spines, to me, have always seemed to interrupt the flow and lines of a blade. About the only time I think a step on a spine can be pulled off is if its used in conjunction with a false edge, with the beveling following the same nice curve of where the spine would have gone without it. Here is an example of what I mean, done by a friend of mine, Dana Hackney http://www.bladegallery.com/shopexd.asp?id=87743 .

Near the tip I probably also wouldn’t have started the drop on the point so abruptly, there is a little high spot on the spine there near the tip that sort of sticks up and makes the front of the blade look a little more stubby than what it actually is, but that’s really not a big thing, just something that caught my eye a little. I guess it’s a result of a more abrupt blending the flat portion of the spine into the drop to the tip. Rather than do a completely flat back portion of the spine, I think if there was a very gradual curve there instead to soften that transition things would flow a bit better. Aside from those two things, the blade profile looks good to me, and again this comes down to my own preferences and opinions, so don’t necessarily look at them as “rules” or anything like that.

Let’s see, the full flat grind looks good. Something I noticed is that your secondary edge bevel is a little on the “wide” side. This just means that when you did the flat grind on your primary bevels, you didn’t quite get the edge down thin enough and as a result had to pull off a little more material higher up when putting on your final edge beveling. This is something that takes a good bit of time to get used to and to get right. It’s something that took me awhile to realize on my own knives. I think it stems from the fact that you have to leave the edge thick before heat treatment, and after heat treatment you don’t want to accidently overheat the edge by getting it too thin (and don’t want to try and re-adjust your whole knife geometry you just spent hours trying to get right), so instinctually you leave the edge thicker than it should be when you are doing your final grind. The closer you get to a zero edge in your final grind the better the blade geometry will work out to be. This also helps a bit in cutting performance. A really “thick” edge behind your secondary edge beveling will make it harder for a blade to move through material (acts more like a wedge). Something else to try to do is to keep the secondary edge bevel uniform in “width” all the way along the edge if possible. This means starting with an edge that is completely uniform in thickness before grinding the secondary edge bevel. This is also why near zero edges before grinding a secondary bevel make things a little easier to deal with as well.

I think I see your “depression” in front of the plunge cut. That’s not horrible, just need to grind a few more blades and you probably shouldn’t run into that again. A lot of makers have problems with what are known as 2” marks. This is what I think happened to you. A 2” mark is a depression 2” from your ricasso where you accidently plunge the forward edge of the belt into the beveling when you are first making contact between the blade and the platen at the plunge cut. They are usually 2” away from the plunge since most folks grind with 2” wide belts. This just takes a bit of practice putting the blade up against the platen to correct. You blended the depression fairly well, so it’s nothing major and you’ve already learned from it so you should be able to check that off the list.

As far as the plunge cut goes, I’m not really a big fan of angled plunges. Some folks like them, I generally don’t. Angled plunges make grinding a bit more tricky (have to grind at an angle) and make hand rubbed finishes a bit more challenging and time consuming. Something else I would do, is if you are going to use an angled plunge, either keep the guard going 90 degrees from the spine (straight across, so to speak) or angled in the same direction as the plunge. Your guard angles in the opposite direction a bit and I personally don’t think that works as well visually.

So those are my impressions regarding the blade. Something else you might start looking into a bit is doing some distal taper (taper in the blade thickness from the guard to tip, along the spine). Distal taper takes a bit of practice to do, but is very useful in getting good balance in a blade. This is more of a chopping knife, so the extra thickness in the tip you have is not really a problem, nor is the extra mass up front as a result, but something to keep in mind on different styled blades. Additionally distal taper can add a little visual appeal down the spine, and it doesn’t have to be drastic, often gradual distal taper makes a great deal of difference (both visually and for balance). As far as your hand rubbed finish goes, it looks pretty good. I did notice a couple “hooks” in it and a few “curved” scratch lines, but otherwise it’s a good job. Keep in mind that I’m super super picky with hand rubbed finishes as a result of my own work and the slightest stray scratch on one of my blades stands out to me like a sore thumb, so don’t think I’m saying you did a poor job, as that’s not the case, just something I noticed. I also notice these fine scratches and hooks in all sorts of other knives, even at knife shows on knives by some very good makers, so it’s just my perfectionistic eye I suppose. One of the side effects of calibrating your eye to pick out the slightest imperfections in you own work, you notice them in other’s work as well, lol.

As far as the handle shape, again, I like blades where the spine on the handle flows with the lines of the spine. Your handle is a bit straight along the spine, and the flared end doesn’t quite fit with the flow either. I think it could be a bit of the angle at which the handle meets the spine. If the handle were angled down just a hair, I think that things would line up a bit better. Again, just a visual opinion. There are a few little depressions and “bumps” along the handle that I notice. These aren’t a super huge deal, but they are noticeable at times, and do distract from the flow a little bit. That should be fairly easy to correct. Handles are tricky as grinders eat wood quickly so it takes a great deal of concentration to not accidently remove too much material. I’ve eaten my fair share of handles on the grinder. Anymore, I do a good portion of my shaping by hand with wood rasps and then hand sanding. It takes a lot longer but I think the extra control is worth it.

Looks like you got your pin holes drilled and fitted nicely. I don’t really see any gaps around them from oversized holes or holes being drilled slightly off center. Looks like your grip scales are fitted nicely to the spine, no real gaps from what I can see in the pictures, and also looks like you have good fit between the scales and the guard. These are really tricky areas for a lot of people, so you are doing quite well in that department. The fit between the guard and the tang in the finger “choil” does have a very noticeable gap. That’s a very tricky thing to fit right, given the design. One thing you can do is actually make the area on the tang under the guard flat (don’t worry about the profile under there) so that the round radius of the guard ends right at that point (don’t know if that made any sense or not). I’m not a big fan of guards on full tang knives due to the difficulty in fit up and I don’t care for the “C” shaped nature of how the guards have to be to go around the tang, nor how they end abruptly at the spine to facilitate this. I’m personally not a big fan of full tang knives in general just for aesthetic reasons, but that’s beside the point. I guess one thing to take into account is when you are designing a knife, keep in mind these little problem areas where things can be difficult to fit up (like under the guard there) and try to design them out so that you don’t have to worry about them, or try to tweak things so that if you do have to deal with fitting something tricky it goes a bit more smoothly.

Lets see, in the last picture it looks like the tip of your guard might be a little offset to one side, and almost looks like your edge is also a little off set right there at the plunge. Hard to tell, could be the camera angle, or just a minor detail.

So that’s basically what I see with the blade. The positive points I see are that it looks like a good blade design in terms of functionality and general shaping. Your handle pinning and scale fit between the tang and guard are good. The hand rubbed finish looks to be pretty good. Flat grind on the blade is good. Also, I’m sure you pinned your guard in place and the pins aren’t visible from what I can see, so that’s a good job there.

Things that could be improved upon would be mainly the guard fit up. That’s one of those super tough things to get right and just takes a great deal of time, patience and practice. Something to remember with soft materials like brass/bronze which can save you some fuss is to leave your guard stock really oversized when fitting things up, and then you can actually use some “physical persuasion” to get the fit just right. In other words with soft malleable materials you can actually hammer on them (or squeeze in a vise, or press, etc) to force them to fit properly, and actually close gaps by expanding the material into them. Guards are some of the hardest things to get right so just have some patience with it and you’ll be getting them soon enough. Other things to improve upon are just some fine details with fit and finish here and there, nothing really worth commenting on specifically as this is something you will naturally get better at with time. I also really wouldn’t worry about the “style/flow” things I mentioned above, largely due to the fact that right now you are very early in your knife making and are still largely in the experimental stages of things, still trying to see what works and what doesn’t, and more focused on construction techniques and actually making the knife rather than trying to nail down form and flow. Additionally right now you are at the stage where you want to try new things, new ideas, and new techniques, so you try to incorporate as many of them as you can in a knife to try them out. Once you get more comfortable with the construction techniques you will probably start looking at different design elements and more of the aesthetics of the blade. I think of it as the natural progression of things. That’s how most folks start out, and myself included. It really takes time and experience to develop a sense of form and flow in blades, and it’s something that will usually change over time and generally doesn’t come until you get all of the “basics” worked out. I, for example, started out with a very different sense of how blades should look and flow, and how handles should be done, and liked a lot of different spacers and handle materials and made overall more “busy” blades, whereas now I tend to lean more towards what I call “elegant simplicity” in my designs, where the focus is placed on the lines and flow of the blade, and attention is drawn to key elements, like the natural beauty of the handle material, or the beauty of the Damascus blade, without a great deal of “extra” things to distract from this.

And, of course you have already touched on a very important issue, right now I am only commenting on aesthetics of the blade (fit and finish, and only from pictures to boot) and have no way of judging the blade in terms of balance, ergonomics/feel, and most importantly performance. Your performance test sounds reasonable and sounds like you got a decent heat treat on the blade. Your test sounds similar to what I usually do with my blades. Here is a breakdown of the “standard” performance test I give each of my blades. Firstly a brass rod edge flex test to check that the temper is correct on the edge. Then I give the blade a good overall flex/strength test (clamp the tip in a vise and flex it, hang from the blade and do some pull ups, or place the blade on the corner of the work bench and lift myself up with it, that sort of thing). Then I usually chop through a 2x4 a couple of times (if it’s a longer blade that can chop of course) and check the edge. I also do the “pine board” test, where you stab a pine board and then fold the knife over side ways so that the tip pries up out of the wood (will tell you really quickly if your tip is too hard, too soft, or too thin). Then after the knife is done and I have the final edge on it, it always gets the shaving test and a great deal of paper cutting (and more shaving, etc.) to make sure I am happy with the sharpness. The performance of your knife is again something I can’t determine from pictures, so that will be up to you. Something you might consider doing is once you have some experience with a particular steel (5160, 1084, whatever it might be), do a destruction test with one of your knives. Basically, do all of the cutting and abusive performance testing you want with it, and then do a flex test to the point where the blade fails. A destruction test will tell you more about the quality of your heat treatment, construction, design, and potential problem areas than anything else. I know starting out you put in so much time and effort into a blade that you generally don’t want to destroy a blade, but its something to think about, and try as soon as you are comfortable doing it. I do destruction tests periodically. Generally if there is a blade that doesn’t come out the way I want, I’ll use it for a destruction test.

Oh, and as for pricing, that’s a tough one to comment on. There are no rules for knife pricing. Out in the world of selling hand made knives, there are guys that do substandard work who ask and arm and a leg and at the same time there are guys who do very good work who charge peanuts, so it’s really all up to the maker. Ask what you think is fair and what you think your work is worth and that’s the best you can do. $150 sounds like a fair price to me for what the knife is, but all that is important is that you think the price is fair for how you view your work and how much time and effort you have in the piece.

So I guess that’s where I’ll leave things for the moment. Hopefully this will be of some help to you and I hope nothing came across as unconstructive as it wasn’t intended to be. Be sure to let me know if there is anything else you want me to address, or if you have any questions, etc.

Ok so firstly i have to say thank you very much for such and in depth critique and secondly it was very useful. Lots of the points you brought up i knew or had figured out how to fix by the time the knife was finished but many i had never thought of. I can definitely say everything you said will be taken into consideration. I’ll try to fix most of the errors on the next knife i do,i have had it drawn up for a while but i won't start it till exams are finished. I'm really glad you mentioned the stepped spine because this next knife has something similar to it. I wasn't sure how to blend it in and i was thinking of a false edge. Now that i've seen how well that works i'll definitely be trying it because this knife has the perfect profile to attempt that.

Thanks very much for all the help, ill post my next knife when i'm finished in maybe a month. (lets see if i can narrow that list of problems down)

Jason