Ideas for a new knife build: the Compact Roe Grallocher

[zambezi]

I am just getting into knife making and find it absolutely facinating. Particularly as knives are integral to my boar and deer stalking. The opportunity is to draw from the sum of my experiences in the field using commercially produced sharps, and then use lessons learnt there to build out the knife incorporating all the best features encountered.

Practicality sits paramount in the decision-making process. But that does not mean that aesthetics have to go out the window. Some draft ideas have sat on the sketchpad for a bit... ..and may see light of day down the road.

However the project I fancy tackling next is a compact Roe gralloch knife. And I plan to incorporate a feature I have not seen anywhere. When tidying the buck's pizzle area, cleaning away the flesh to reveal the valve above which the cut is made, I have sometimes wished for an anatomically appropriate [crescent] edge to scrape the flesh back without risk of incision. Ditto the oesophagus area.

And I want the knife to be no bigger than absolutely neccesary. Today the design below will start to take shape in steel:






This knife will also be the first time I get to trial my new knife jig



The hardening process should also be improved as I now have a thermocouple to definitively track forge temperature

 

[imnotrucknut]

Looking forward to this.

 

[Smelly Yeti]

Definately interested in seeing the project develop

 

[zambezi]

This afternoon I transferred the template to 1095 steel and cut it out with the angle grinder .


Grindstone and filing tidied the edges and a Dremel reamed out the spine's crescent before some 150 Rhynowet cleaned the piece up...

 

[zambezi]

...ready for tomorrow's bevel work:

 

[AN DU RU FOX]

lovely,the crescent isn,t needed as you can just use the edge of the blade as i do with the moras.not a critisiscm just an heads up if you want to make it a slimmer profile ,nice work tho .atb doug

 

[zambezi]

you can just use the edge of the blade

Sure. And I have. But...my experience using the shorter blades I prefer to carry is that I can and have let the tube run to the sharp point. What the crescent confers is a slip-free notch. I.e. a lot more control.

And it has had an unexpected design plus: If ever I wish to make a power cut with thumb on spine, it locates the thumb very nicely

 

[SteveW]

Yes really interesting to see the progress will be great to see the finished knife!

 

[woodmaster]

Similar proportions here.

I had this made by JES to a template I supplied. It was based on his Magpie design with a few little mods. After a considerable number of grallocks it has worked well. The only alteration I would make now is to have a little less belly in the blade for use on muntjac. For Roe and fallow is works well. A little short for reds but will surfice if needed.

 

[woodmaster]

Similar proportions here.
View attachment 163702

 

[zambezi]

Magpie design with a few little mods

Interesting. You appear to have requested the same scallop feature in the spine which I incorporated into my design above. For the same purpose as I have described or something else? It is interesting when common purpose leads to common design totally independent of collaboration.

 

[woodmaster]

The purpose of the scallop was two fold. One to scrape back meat from ashopogus and the second to use on a strike a light fire starter. Interestingly I've never needed to start a fire with it.

 

[zambezi]

I added a bushed file stop to the knife filing jig to protect the plunge line edge and set about applying a flat grind by working both faces to a median line drawn on the blade edge. I used barstard and fine files to produce flats before switching to Rhynowet 150 and then 320 to remove file drags


Blade is now ready for drilling and heat treat in the morning.

My previous project's 1095 heat treat had a less than perfect outcome. This time I am going to normalise [857C/1575F for 5 mins, air cool] before going for the hardening cycle [830C/1526F and then quench in Rye oil] and finally the tempering [200C/395F for one hour to get 63HRc].

 

[Utectok]

Where do you get your steel from?

 

[zambezi]

Where do you get your steel from?

GFS Knife supplies. They hold stock of a very wide range of steels and ancilliary knife making kit. I bought the mosaic pins I used on my last project from them too.

 

[zambezi]

Drilled out the holes for the mosaic pins first followed by the weight-reduction holes which also aid slab-to-tang adhesion before chamfering holes [reduces stress points for hardening cycle, I am advised . Finally picked slab material from my up-cycle bin. This is the remnant of a kitchen shelf recovered from previous home when we re-decorated. It had some heft, so I knew it was good timber under the paint. I have since been told it is Genge

 

[zambezi]

First time using the thermocouple to adjudicate forge temperature . It took a bit of faffing to get the forge torch air-fuel venturi pitch perfect to hold a steady heat. I think I got there. Normalised from 860°C to black in free air then tweaked forge a little down to 830°C for the hardening cycle.

I was able to maintain a 825°C- 835°C range for the duration the steel was in the forge. Once uniformly coloured, I quenched in Rye oil using a slicing motion. The oven meanwhile was preheated to a verified 200°C for the 1 hour tempering cycle.

Slabs and glue up tomorrow....

 

[zambezi]

Temper seemed good and lnife left to cool . Quench clag removed by wire wool and Rhynowet . Blade looks pretty dandy. It will probably receive the tiniest of secondary bevels. Still toying with the idea of a true flat grind if metal seems hard enough

 

[Utectok]

When I used to make knives we would draw the temper on the handle and blade back. First harden then draw to a light straw colour in the oven, then put cutting edge in water and use a torch to bring the handle and blade back to blue (spring steel?) that’s what I remember anyway. Do you still do that?

 

[zambezi]

One little wrinkle so far...more a ripple. Almost invisible to the naked eye and darn near impossible to photograph are some microscopic undulations in the metal. This occurred somewhere in the forge+quench sequence.

The pattern is reminiscent of cellulitis [come on, we've all dated big girls, right?] but at a sub 600grit level. Either the forging or the quench seems to have given rise to microscopic clumping. [I did not see any surface bubbling in the quench]

It is probably irrelevant in the vast scheme of things. However, my last 1095 project would not take an edge. What was apparent on that build was a crystalline structure to the edge. Regardless, given the care I have devoted to 1095, this level of weird is not tenable. It is official: I will not buy any more 1095.