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The Seven Day Knife Project

I've recently become very interested in knife making. I've been collecting knives since I was a tween and now I want to make my own. Pursuant to this goal, and for a school project about ritual and artifact, I've decided to make one knife a day for one week. I will attempt different styles and techniques, and not work on them again once the day is up. This will be difficult not only because I've never made a knife but also because school is in session and I have plenty of homework already.

Regardless, here is my first knife build:

I wanted to start by setting up real quench tanks, no more plastic bottles of water. I've had this medical oxygen cylinder kicking around for years, so I cut it in half. 

I wanted to use both halves but the top (valve) side didn't like to stand up, so I whipped up a quick and easy stand.

One half will hold water and the other will hold oil, both for quenching hot metals.

Starting with a piece of mystery steel from my pile (not the best way to start, but it was Friday afternoon and I wasn't going to go on a high-carbon hunt) I made the length about the same as my current pocket knife.

I sketched my first idea with soapstone onto the cleaned metal and rough-cut it with a cut-off wheel.

Then I smoothed the lines and started grinding the edge.This took a while.

When the edge was nearly done I heated the blade and quenched it in oil

New quench tank.

After finish-grinding the blade I used some wood I had lying around (pine? again, not the best start, oh well) to make the handle sides.

And used high-strength epoxy to attach them. Next time I will probably use brass pins as well.

Once the epoxy had set up I sanded the wood down into a nice grip-able handle.

Again, this was my very first try at making a knife, I have a long way to go still.

Another new thing I'm trying is time lapse photography of my work sessions, I cherry picked from the 400+ photos from today the ones that I thought were cool and in which I don't look too flabby.

Hipster safety goggles.

Aaannd... we're back.

Finished a very busy semester at school a few weeks ago, and took some time to relax and gather myself. Now, I'm back in the saddle and have a few exciting new projects coming up for the summer, more on those another time.

To make sure I enjoyed myself this summer (and to try to shrink my recently expanded mid-section) I purchased a new bicycle, a fixed gear bike.

I've certainly been critical of fixed gear bikes before, but I have no intention of riding on the street; my main issue with the 'fixie' fad is that these machines are laughably equipped to deal with urban cycling and its many stops and other vehicles. My intent is to take this bike to the exceptional (and lengthy) Bosque Trail here in Albuquerque and compete with myself for the fastest time on the trail. The benefit of a single speed setup is weight reduction, friction reduction and simplicity. I will put a large chainring on the front and focus all my energy on accelerating.

You might remember an interesting photo I put used the Scorchers article of a bicycle-policeman and his enormous chainring.

Arnold Kurth-bicycle police officer

This gave him an advantage in pursuing the speed-obsessed ragamuffins of the day. You can read more about mechanical advantage and gear reduction here.

The biggest chainring I've been able to find is a 54 tooth, installing a new chainring will necessitate a longer chain, and to find the length of the new chain will require... MATH! 

First, we need to know a few things:

A 54 tooth sprocket has a 27 inch circumference (half inch spacing between each tooth)

A 27 inch circumference has an 8.58 diameter (Use Pi)

The rear sprocket has 16 teeth, an 8 inch circumference and a diameter of 2.54 inches

The distance between the crank and the rear bearing in 17.25 inches

You'll have to forgive the crudeness of the sketch

If we look only at the chain we can start to divide it into different, easily calculable sections:

Seriously, drawings not my thing

The sprockets are only covered by chain for about half their circumference, and the chain has two sections running between each sprocket but we only need to calculate this once.

The sprocket measurements are easy, take the circumference and divide it by half. 

Rear = 4 inches of chain

Front = 13.5 inches of chain

To find the connecting length we can use the Pythagorean Theorem, which states that in a triangle with one right angle (90 degrees) the length of the opposite side will be the square root of the sum of each other length squared, or a² + b² = c². To take advantage of this we need to identify a right-angled triangle in the setup, we know that the chain runs from the peak of the rear sprocket to the peak of the chainring (approximately), and this is the length we want to find (c² or the hypotenuse, in mathematical terms). The bottom side of the triangle can go from the peak of the sprocket to a point inside the area of the chainring, this point is 1.27 inches directly above the center of the chainring. 1.27 is half the diameter of the rear sprocket, or the distance from the center of the sprocket to its peak.

The final side of the triangle is simply half the diameter of the chainring minus half the diameter of the sprocket, 8.58/2= 4.29, 4.29-1.27= 3.02.

Not to scale, duh

Now we can square 17.25 (17.25 x 17.25 = 297.56) and 3.02 (3.02 x 3.02 = 9.12) and add the products together (297.56 + 9.12 = 306.68) and find the square root of the sum (I don't know the notation for square root on this keyboard, but the answer is 17.51). Which means that the total chain length is 4 + 13.5 + 17.51 + 17.51 which equals 52.52 inches of chain. 

Now seems like a good time to mention that there are preprogrammed calculators available to find this for you, I used one to check my work:

But aren't you glad you went through all that?

The calculator got the same answer but was smart enough to round it up for functionality.

 There are a few reasons I chose to do the math myself, first being that I enjoy math and I tend to think about these things even if I don't need the new chain, second that someday I may not have a someone else's knowledge to draw upon, the internet and even books are not guaranteed to us and if someday they aren't around and you need to get something done you'll have to use your brain, and finally because as frustrating and boring as math can be (even I slept through it in school) that doesn't mean it doesn't apply to your life or that you can't find a way to make it fun. 

I'm going to do a few more like this, and I encourage anyone following at home to ask questions or point out where I could have simplified the process. 

Gone Shopping

Unfortunately, due to my own clumsiness, I broke my safety glasses.

They survived almost a hundred years on their own, and only five with me.

While I look into replacing the safety lens I still need eye protection, so I made a trip to my favorite surplus store, and picked up a pair of these bad boys:

With a military surplus case.

I also happened upon a classy looking gauge and some sweet tiny drill bits that look tougher than the ones I've been using.

33 cents per bit, the price is right.

UPDATE: Those drill bits are not at all stronger than every other tiny bit I've ever used broken, but at least they fit in a regularly sized chuck.

So long Doc(s)

I think my Dr. Martens have officially bit the bullet. After the salvage yard excursion last week I came home with the enough sand in my shoes to build an island off the coast of Dubai, and it's not hard to see why:

That dark spot isn't a patch of really nice leather, it's my sock.

The Red Hot Ring of Steel only has one defense against its predator The Boot.

They're about five years old at this point, they were used for over three years working for a ceramics manufacturer, fixing all manner of equipment from kilns to megalithic man-murdering mixers, while building a railing I stepped on a ring just recently trimmed off of a pipe with a torch; I wore these when I was bicycling 20 miles a day to and from that very same job from November to February; I wore them while I was learning to ride a motorcycle, I've worn them while welding, mechanic-ing, gardening, carpenter-ing, standing in the cold for eight hours, and even to the gym. But it's time to retire these titans of footwear and let their descendants shoulder (or foot) the burden now.

Salvage Yard II

We visited the scrap yard of Coronado Wrecking and Salvage, here in Albuquerque. They demolish and haul away buildings (or what-have-you) and many of the materials end up in their salvage yard, which is open to the public six days a week. It's a bit hard to find but once you know the way it's quite easy, simply sign in at their office an explore the yard in your vehicle or on foot. I went with some friends and classmates we were looking for steel tubing, chain, sheet metal, and inspiration. We found most of these things, and more. After finding much in the way of useful raw materials, we were able to get down the business of goofing off.

Found these giant sprockets half buried in the sand.

My wannabe artsy photo.

Patrick (from PariahCycle) lending size comparison to a hydraulic ram.

Patrick looking heroic on a luggage tractor.

Joe's new pet chain out for a walk.

Outside of the main office were two antique machines,  believe this to be a printing press.

And this to be some sort of shear.

Salvage Yard

We visited the scrap yard of Coronado Wrecking and Salvage, here in Albuquerque. They demolish and haul away buildings (or what-have-you) and many of the materials end up in their salvage yard, which is open to the public six days a week. It's a bit hard to find but once you know the way it's quite easy, simply sign in at their office an explore the yard in your vehicle or on foot. I went with some friends and classmates we were looking for steel tubing, chain, sheet metal, and inspiration. We found most of these things, and more:

The yard is quite large.

They have some great views.

See much more after the break: