Click HERE to pre-order a Bottle opening, Friction Folder like the ones in the WIP.

Ok, figured I'd make a little Work In Progress page on my newest endeavor.

I've been meaning to make a friction folder for a while now, so here I go.

I figure there's no sense in having that tab stick out of the knife, doing nothing, so, mine will open beer.
This is important.

Check back from time to time, to see the progress.

3 February, 2011

Here's the drawing I am beginning with.
Open, these are only 4-1/8" from end to end. My smallest knife yet!
And, my first friction folder.

And here is what I have so far.
Blades and Material

Just some waterjet titanium for a few knives

Some Blades, and Pivot/Stop Pin Supports for Laminate Only handles.
These will be inlaid into the inside of the Carbon fiber handles.
I don't know how abusive opening bottles is on a stop pin, so I want them set in metal, not just into laminate.

.050" Titanium.

And an overview of all the stuff I have on hand.
Blades, Titanium Slabs, Supports, a piece of OD Green G10, and various types of Carbon Fiber.

February 4, 2011

Time to start cutting out my material with the tile saw.

Then mill some pockets for the titanium inlay

Then epoxy them in

Now, I'll ream the holes in the titanium slabs, since all the waterjet did was put them on location, and undersized for me.

Ok, I had a little more time to kill tonight, so I put the stop pin, pivot, and keychain holes in the laminate handles.
The titanium handles are going to have to wait until I get the rest of the material I have on order, hopefully tomorrow.
The holes are still undersized a bit, since I drilled them with a carbide endmill, but a quick ream will fix that right up.
I also just figured out that I need to hold the iPhone sideways to shoot a video that fills the YouTube screen.

February 5, 2011

Ok, lets hope the mailman brings the parts I ordered a week ago, priority mail, or I am at a standstill.

Here's what I have so far today.

A little surface grinding on the inside of the handle slabs to make those inlays flush.

Here's how they look now, surface grinding complete.
This is a bit of overkill, I could have just cleaned them up on the platen of my 2x72, but we're going for overkill here.

I need some tooling plates for the rest of the machining, so I knocked these out real quick.

One for the perimeter milling.

And one you will see put to use later, on the blades.

And that is where I stand until some pivot pins show up.
I really don't want to make them myself.

February 7, 2011

I'm back at it.
My goods showed up, so I can get to work.

 Here's what I was waiting on.

Since I am only holding this to my fixture with 1/8" pins, and 2-56 screws, I decided to grind off the bulk of the extra material from my handle slabs.

Here's laying out the profile with a sharpie.

And here they are, all ground, and ready to get machined.

Drilling the stop pins.

Getting ready to mill the perimeter

Milling the perimeter of the handles.

Counterboring the pivot.

All done machining.

February 8, 2011

Today is Blade Day.
I'll get them done, all the way up to heat treat.

First, is a little video of milling the blades perimeter.
This is not something I do on every knife, but this particular blade lends itself really well to this procedure.
Besides, I have no way of getting inside the bottle opener with my grinder, and I do not like the finish left by the waterjet. It's rough, and it tapers.
All I use the waterjet for is to replace the bandsaw, maximize material usage, and spot the holes.
All waterjet cut surfaces still get cut by me.
Also, on this model, I don't have a good way of chamfering the inside of the opener by hand, so I cut it with the mill. After heat treat, I'll be able to clean it up by hand with some abrasives, and it should look good.

Here's what they look like when they are done with this operation.
The tab in the center will make more sense later.

And then, since this is a wharncliffe blade, I can mill the bevels in.
I'll still grind the bevels, and then hand finish them, but this remove the bulk of the material, quickly.
I built this fixture when Mikkel Willumsen was here on the NADEN project.
It's an angle plate that sits on a tilting table.
I bolt that extra fixture I made a couple of days ago onto the plate, tilt the table to the angle I want, and machine the bevel.
This really speeds up the process, and gives me a good start on the grinding.

When that's all done, I go to the bandsaw, and split the blades into their individual pieces.

Now, I clean up the saw cut, and give the blade it's final shape.
I'll go around the outside again, after heat treat with a fine belt to make everything clean, and smooth.

Cleaning up the bevel grinds before heat treat.
They are rough coming off the mill, and it's a little easier to get the bulk of the metal off when they are soft.
I'll do this again with a 400 grit belt post heat treat, and then hand satin them.

Periphery clean up on the handle slabs with the horizontals.

Next I clean up the chamfers.

A little out of order now, as I actually made the envelopes, and got the parts in the oven before I did the last two grinding operations, but I think we'll be OK.
First thing I need to do is make some foil bags for the blades to go in while heat treating.
This is to control the atmosphere that the blades are in while at temperature, preventing decarburization, and scale build up.

Here's my rig.
Sorry about the dark pictures.
It's a 24" paper guillotine on a custom made cart with foil dispenser.
The trick part is the brake on the foil roll which keeps it from unspooling.
That stuff is the most dangerous stuff in my shop.
.002" thick, stainless foil. It will cut you, it will cut you bad.
Working with this, and pulling stuff out of the oven are the only time gloves are allowed in my shop, though I didn't wear any on this project.

One pouch made, with 2 blades in it.
5 more pouches to go.

And now, here they are coming out of the oven.
The steel is ATS-34, so they've been soaking a little over a half an hour at 1900*

A rough flatness check, and testing the Rockwell Hardness to verify my heat treat.
Jeez married life has turned me into a fat bastard...

Here's the inside of the oven as it's cooling down.
Temp said 1818* when I opened the door.

A quick look at a blade before it goes in the tempering oven.

9 February, 2011

Time to clean up the perimeter of the blades after heat treat.

Prepping some screws to be ground to length.

Shortening the pivots on the lathe.

Buffing some screw heads on a Scotchbrite wheel.

Some early shots while I am waiting for video to upload.

February 9 and 10, 2011

More coming soon...

Copyright © 2006 Brian Fellhoelter