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Re: Scabbard Core Services

Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 2:22 pm
by Eric C
Greg wrote:
Will Whitfoot wrote:I found it useful to use a router to rough out the shape of the blade... that is... a narrow round point bit to cut a single line the depth of the thickest ridge of the blade, and a flat bit to rout out the profile of the blade shallowly. Then it was a flat carving tool to blend the two.
I pride myself in using zero power tools from start to finish on these pieces. It would speed up the process, but speed isn't always desirable, and power tools tend to remove material at a rate that would be prone to excess/mistakes.
Um, yeah! I've ruined a few blades because of hogging away too much material with a power tool.

Re: Scabbard Core Services

Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 6:23 pm
by Will Whitfoot
Fair enough... I guess it all comes down to how many of these things you want to make. After grinding three or four.thousand blades I would never want to go back to hand-filing. After making a couple hundred wooden scabbards I would never want to do without the router. For one thing... it allows you to consider using the hardwoods that you would normally disregard because of the difficulty of cutting with hand-tools. My favorite material nowadays for wooden scabbards is bamboo laminate flooring material. Incredible stuff! Hard to carve but extremely strong and stable. Can be made much thinner than softwood, and can take the pressure of being wire-wrapped.

Re: Scabbard Core Services

Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 11:02 pm
by Eric C
I've seen some absolute masters with a 2X72 grinder. They do wonderful work. But there are things I need to learn first.

Re: Scabbard Core Services

Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 11:36 pm
by Will Whitfoot
I spent so many thousands of hours hunched over a 2x72 grinder that I now have permanent degenerative damage to my spine in the C4-C5 region, with nerve pinching. That's the main reason I don't make blades anymore... I just can't do it more than a half-hour or so at a time. I spent two years making semi-production knives at the Morseth shop, somewhere in the neighborhood of about two thousand of them, before went on my own. That was enough experience to really get the feel of it. If you bought a Morseth knife from early 1977 to late 1979 I probably made it.

Re: Scabbard Core Services

Posted: Sat Feb 10, 2018 12:09 am
by Greg
Will Whitfoot wrote:Fair enough... I guess it all comes down to how many of these things you want to make.
I only work for forum members, so the extra effort is well worth it in my book.

That's unfortunate about your back. Seems whatever we do for a living winds up costing us something in the end...I'm starting to slowly see the effects of my own career choice.

Re: Scabbard Core Services

Posted: Sat Feb 10, 2018 12:47 am
by Peter Remling
Will Whitfoot wrote:I spent so many thousands of hours hunched over a 2x72 grinder that I now have permanent degenerative damage to my spine in the C4-C5 region, with nerve pinching. That's the main reason I don't make blades anymore... I just can't do it more than a half-hour or so at a time. I spent two years making semi-production knives at the Morseth shop, somewhere in the neighborhood of about two thousand of them, before went on my own. That was enough experience to really get the feel of it. If you bought a Morseth knife from early 1977 to late 1979 I probably made it.
I bought one of their kits in that time frame. Sold it just a few years ago. One of the light weight bowies.