Step 11 - Final Shaping and Finishing 

 

Now that all the components have been assembled, the knife is nearing completion. I will now perform the final shaping and finishing of the knife. In these pictures we are featuring another Klipspringer knife. This one features the same type of brass bolsters as the last, except I put in a couple G10 and brass spacers behind it for a distinctive look. Instead of three handle pins, I used two, and this one also features a mosaic thong hold on the back, in case its new owner wants to put a lanyard on it. The handle is also wood – stabilized Black Ash Burl in this case. 

As before, most of the grunt work takes place on the 2x72" belt grinders. First we grind away all excess handle material and start shaping the handle and bolsters into the final form. 

Working the handle takes quite a bit of experience. Applying too much pressure in one area can gouge another area, and so on. Some knives feature contoured handles, while others remain a bit more flat. Again, this is a matter of personal preference.

Much of the work on the bottom is done on the radius grinder, this time using much finer grits of abrasives. I usually work on finer and finer grits until I reach 800-900 grit before going to hand sanding and the buffing machine. You can also see that we often use very flexible belts and a slack belt (not on the platen) to really smooth things out. 

After everything is sanded smooth on the grinders, I then turn to hand sanding. This is performed with 1 inch wide strips which we purchase in large rolls and keep at every workstation. I also use sheets of abrasives, some of which go up to 4000 grit. Unfortunately, we neglected to take a picture of this step, but it is fairly straight forward. 

Now that all the sanding is complete, I now buff the knife. I usually start with the bolsters and pommel (if the knife has them), and remove scratch marks, bringing the metal to a high luster. I then switch wheels to a one with a rouge more appropriate for the handle material (such as a pink rouge). All knives go through a progression of various buffing wheels until the desired outcome is achieved.

As you can see, the knife has now really taken on its own personality. The wood grain is stunning and is a great backdrop for the detail in the mosaic pins. The knife will now be unwrapped and cleaned up – and will almost be ready to be shipped to its new owner. But first the knife blade needs to be marked with our signature logo, serial number...etc.