{"id":233,"date":"2012-01-10T20:47:52","date_gmt":"2012-01-10T20:47:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sterlingsculptures.com\/wp\/?p=233"},"modified":"2012-09-26T14:40:05","modified_gmt":"2012-09-26T14:40:05","slug":"carving-a-noggin-and-making-a-crook-knife-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sterlingsculptures.com\/wp\/?p=233","title":{"rendered":"Carving a Noggin and Making a Crook Knife"},"content":{"rendered":"
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After testing my crook knife, I liked it so well I decided to make another, with less “crook” to it. \u00a0In the Pacific Northwest, this one is called a “planer” crook knife, since it is used to produce a nice texture on flat or convex curved surfaces (not used so much on the inside of bowls).<\/p>\n

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\nHere’s the paper pattern glued onto a sheet of 1075 high carbon steel (the white paper on the lower left corner). \u00a0This sheet is 1\/16 of an inch thick.<\/p>\n

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\nAbove is the blade blank cut out of the sheet.<\/p>\n

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\nWith my micromotor grinder and a small carbide burr, I’ve carved two little divots in the center of the blade where I’m going to drill the holes to fasten the blade to the handle. \u00a0These little divots will help keep the drillbit from wandering and drilling off center.<\/p>\n

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\nI’ve drilled 1\/8 inch diameter pilot holes. \u00a0I’m going to “sneak up” on the size holes I want. \u00a0Hich carbon steel is a problematic material to drill holes in – if I start with too large of a drill bit, I run the risk of work hardening the steel before the bit cuts through. \u00a0This will locally harden the metal and cause the drilling to stall out, causing the drilling to stop, and damage the drill bit as well. \u00a0I never have problem with 1\/8 inch diameter bits, so I’ll start with that, and drill several times with the next size up until I finally reach the 1\/4 inch diameter I want.<\/p>\n

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\nHere are the 1\/4 inch diameter holes. \u00a0They’ll fit the screw posts seen above the blade.<\/p>\n

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\nNow it’s time to begin shaping the blade. \u00a0I’ve cleaned up all the sides, and now I’m going to use an angle grinder to put in the initial flats in the business end. \u00a0I’ve clamped it in my vise horizontally. \u00a0There’s always an “easy” side of the blade, and a hard side. \u00a0The top edge of the blade is the “easy” side in this case.<\/p>\n

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\nHere the flat ground in the top side.<\/p>\n

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\nNow for the “hard” side. \u00a0I’ve installed the blade in a vertical position in the vise, and I’ll grind in the flat on the right side of the blade – this is the awkward side for me.<\/p>\n

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\nHere’s the blade with both flats roughly ground in. \u00a0This is the top side of the blade, and the blade will curve “up” as it sits here when I’ve finished. \u00a0I’ll hammer the curve in later.<\/p>\n

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\nNow I’m going to use a file to do the fine finishing in shaping the blade. \u00a0This is my filing setup. \u00a0I use a woodworking clamp held in my woodworking bench, with a long thin piece of wood underneath to keep the blade from bending during filing.<\/p>\n

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\nHere’s a closeup of the business end of my filing rig.<\/p>\n

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\nHere I’m draw-filing the left hand side of the blade. \u00a0Remember when I said there are easy sides and hard sides? \u00a0In filing, this is what I find to be the “hard” side. \u00a0The red color is what I call the “Sharpie Trick.” \u00a0I color the metal with a dark colored (red in this case, it helps hide the blood!) Sharpie permanent felt marker, then file. \u00a0You can see here the places where the color is left after filing – those areas are still below the surrounding surface, indicating I need to do more filing. \u00a0I’ll re-apply the Sharpie, file, and repeat several times.<\/p>\n

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\nHere I’ve finished preliminary filing with a Nicholson Bastard file. \u00a0You can see the file marks (I re-colored with the Sharpie, and filed again). \u00a0This is a medium file, and leaves a fairly coarse finish. \u00a0I’ll use an almost worn out finer cut file for the final finish.<\/p>\n

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\nHere’s the final finish on this side (the worn fine cut file).<\/p>\n

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\nI finished up the other side, paying special attention to getting both sides even, and meeting in the center of the blade.<\/p>\n

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\nHere’s the back side of the blade, just left flat.<\/p>\n

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\nNow to start on the handle, here drawn in side profile. \u00a0I’ve got a nice piece of Yew wood for this handle.<\/p>\n

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\nI cut out the area around the prospective handle. \u00a0I’ll leave it square and flat like this until I’ve finished drilling the holes to hole the blade in, and cutting the bottom channel the blade will rest in.<\/p>\n

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\nHere’s the blade ready to heat treat. \u00a0Above, I’ve dipped the blade several time into a solution of boric acid and alcohol, burning off the alcohol each time, leaving the boric acid behind. \u00a0This is an old jeweller’s trick – the boric acid will melt, forming a kind of glass that will help keep the blade from losing carbon when exposed to oxygen when I heat it up to an orange heat. \u00a0This blade is so thin, and I have to leave the cutting edges so sharp that decarbonization is a real problem if I overheat the blade. \u00a0I can’t leave the blade a little thicker as I normally do, since once I’ve hammered the blade into a curve, it will be really difficult to do much grinding on it after heat treatment, and it will be way too hard to file.<\/p>\n

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\nAnd here is the blade after hardening it in warm vegetable oil. \u00a0Here’s the procedure I use for heat treating a blade: \u00a0I put a railroad spike in the forge and start heating it. \u00a0When it is at a nice glowing orange, I’ll dump it into a coffee can of vegetable oil (to heat the oil). \u00a0Remember to keep a fireproof lid on hand just in case things get a little excited – the red hot spike will flame the oil a bit, and there is a possibility of catching the oil on fire if it gets too hot. \u00a0The lid will smother the flames!<\/p>\n

In the meantime, I’ve held the blade in the flame emerging from the propane gas forge, watching it carefully to a low red heat, and then tapping it with a small ball peen hammer on the horn of my anvil to put in the amount of curve I want. \u00a0This will take just a few light taps. \u00a0Then, I’ll “normalize” the blade at least once to refine the grain in the steel. \u00a0Normalizing is heating the blade up to “critical” temperature, in this case a low orange color (and non-magnetic – the point where the hot part of the blade will not stick to a magnet), then allowing it to cool slowly down to black heat in still air. \u00a0If I’ve done a fair amount of forging, on a blade, then I’ll repeat this process at least three times. \u00a0Once is probably fine here, since I’ve not really done any forging on it with the hammer.<\/p>\n

After normalizing, I’ll heat it back up to the dull orange color (and non-magnetic) critical temperature, then QUICKLY quench it in the warm vegetable oil. \u00a0This will make the blade as hard as glass. \u00a0I check that with a file (it should skate off the metal, not cutting into it at all). \u00a0This is WAY too hard to use as a knife, since it is also as brittle as glass. \u00a0the blade can shatter if I bump it hard, drop it to the concrete floor, and sometimes just for spite sitting around. \u00a0To fix that, I IMMEDIATELY popped it into an oven at 425 degrees F for several hours to “temper” the blade. \u00a0Tempering will draw back some of the hardness, and reduce the brittleness of the blade. \u00a0I adjust the temperature of the tempering cycle, depending on the use I intend for the blade – for instance, on the first crook knife, I tempered it at 450 degrees F, since I wanted it less hard, but more “springy” considering it has much more “crook.”<\/p>\n

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\n<\/a>Above is the completed blade, cleaned up after the hardening and tempering cycles.<\/p>\n

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\n<\/a>I’ve clamped the blade into position for marking on the bottom of the handle. \u00a0I traced around the blade, and will be removing wood for a channel to set the blade in.
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\n<\/a>And here’s the handle marked, and ready to cut.<\/p>\n

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\n<\/a>OK, I’m cheating again with my Sherline mini milling machine. \u00a0I could have done the same thing with knife and small chisel. \u00a0I just don’t believe in suffering just to build character, especially when I have a milling machine just sitting there, all lonely and unloved…<\/p>\n

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\n<\/a>Above, I’ve used a knife to trim everything up for a nice close fit, and set the blade into position, ready for drilling.<\/p>\n

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\n<\/a>Using a 1\/4 inch diameter drill bit, I used the blade as a drilling jig. \u00a0This keeps everything lined up, guaranteeing a good fit.<\/p>\n

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\n<\/a>Another little trick I use is to insert the screw post into the first hole as a locating pin, making certain the second hole will be drilled accurately.<\/p>\n

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\n<\/a>I left the handle nice and square up until this time to make milling and drilling easier. \u00a0Now, I’ve cut the top profile of the handle with a bandsaw. \u00a0It’s important to think the order of these operations through, or you will work yourself into a corner…<\/p>\n

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\n<\/a>Next, I cut the two sides off. \u00a0Still easy to do, because the bottom of the handle is stille nice and flat.<\/p>\n

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\n<\/a>Lastly, I cut the bottom of the handle to shape. \u00a0This is the trickiest cut, since there isn’t a flat spot, and there is risk of the handle twisting during cutting, and the cut isn’t square to the handle…but, here it doesn’t really matter if the cut isn’t really accurate, I’ll just adjust during the final shaping of the handle.<\/p>\n

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\n<\/a>I installed the blade and the screw posts. \u00a0Notice the front screw post is too long, and will have to be trimmed below the surface of the wood. \u00a0I did discover something I hadn’t anticipated – the threads in the screw post don’t go very deep, so when I trimmed the screw post shorter, the top screw bottomed out before it should have, so I had to trim the screw shorter as well. \u00a0I’ll avoid this problem next time by buying a shorter screw post to start with.<\/p>\n

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\n<\/a>Above, I’ve test assembled the blade and screw posts. \u00a0Everything fits just fine…<\/p>\n

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\n<\/a>I used a little cold gun blue to darken the blade, this will help with rust prevention, and I like the color better.<\/p>\n

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\n<\/a>Above, I clamped the handle in various positions in my filing rig, minus the stiffening board, for shaping. \u00a0I did it all with a couple of small spokeshaves.<\/p>\n

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\n<\/a>Here’s the handle shaped and ready to put together, along with the two little spokeshaves. \u00a0These inexpensive spokeshaves are some of my favorite tools. \u00a0They are available from LeeValley.com.<\/p>\n

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\n<\/a>And, finally, there are both of the crook knives, finished with some Watco oil finish (mostly linseed oil). \u00a0I still need to sharpen the new one, then I’ll see how it works.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After testing my crook knife, I liked it so well I decided to make another, with less “crook” to it. \u00a0In the Pacific Northwest, this one is called a “planer” crook knife, since it is used to produce a nice … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[23],"tags":[9,24,4],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6qLAy-3L","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":222,"url":"http:\/\/sterlingsculptures.com\/wp\/?p=222","url_meta":{"origin":233,"position":0},"title":"Carving a Noggin and Making a Crook Knife","date":"January 9, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"What's a noggin? \u00a0It's a small, carved wooden cup carried by frontiersmen, often carved from pretty burl wood. \u00a0This one is just cherry. \u00a0It will hang from a chunky button on a string that goes under a belt, so the prospective Dan'l Boone has it handy to get a drink\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Carving"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sterlingsculptures.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/Toms_Noggin_2-223x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":814,"url":"http:\/\/sterlingsculptures.com\/wp\/?p=814","url_meta":{"origin":233,"position":1},"title":"Burl Noggin part 1","date":"January 19, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"After making the new crook knife, I needed a good test for it. \u00a0Scrounging around in my wood stash, I found a small block of big leaf maple burl, which has been seasoning for, oh, about 20 years now. \u00a0It was hard as the dickens, but the crook knife did\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Carving"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/sterlingsculptures.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/Burl_Turtle_Noggin_1-300x237.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1009,"url":"http:\/\/sterlingsculptures.com\/wp\/?p=1009","url_meta":{"origin":233,"position":2},"title":"Burl Noggin part 5","date":"January 24, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"And, finally, the noggin and button are finished. \u00a0Here it is as the entire ensemble. Thanks for looking!","rel":"","context":"In "Carving"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sterlingsculptures.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/Toms_Noggin_7.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":819,"url":"http:\/\/sterlingsculptures.com\/wp\/?p=819","url_meta":{"origin":233,"position":3},"title":"Burl Noggin part 2","date":"January 20, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Well, since I made the fancy Gentleman's Noggin, I now need a high-end chunky button to go along with it. \u00a0These chunky buttons were designed to allow someone to hang the noggin from their belt, but still be handy to take it off for use. \u00a0It struck me that this\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Carving"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/sterlingsculptures.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/Antler_Crown_NW_Frog_1-300x210.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":861,"url":"http:\/\/sterlingsculptures.com\/wp\/?p=861","url_meta":{"origin":233,"position":4},"title":"Burl Noggin part 4","date":"January 22, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"I've been working this morning to remove the background of the engraved copper disk. I used my NSK micromotor grinder and several sizes of very small carbide burrs to carve away the background, leaving a pleasing texture behind. I fastened the antler crown with the epoxied engraving in my engraver's\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Carving"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/sterlingsculptures.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/Antler_Crown_NW_Frog_18-300x272.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":842,"url":"http:\/\/sterlingsculptures.com\/wp\/?p=842","url_meta":{"origin":233,"position":5},"title":"Burl Noggin part 3","date":"January 22, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"When last we saw our hero, he was getting ready to begin engraving. Above, I've stuck the copper disk on a small block of walnut with pitch (Northwest Pitchworks, in Bellingham WA). \u00a0Here, it is clamped in my engraver's vise. \u00a0I also transferred my design - in this case, I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Carving"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/sterlingsculptures.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/Antler_Crown_NW_Frog_6-300x223.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sterlingsculptures.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sterlingsculptures.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sterlingsculptures.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sterlingsculptures.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sterlingsculptures.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=233"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"http:\/\/sterlingsculptures.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":256,"href":"http:\/\/sterlingsculptures.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233\/revisions\/256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sterlingsculptures.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sterlingsculptures.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sterlingsculptures.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}