All About Pocket Knives

Just finished inletting these nickle silver initials. Had no Idea what a job I was in for. The wood is Amboyna burl which is an absolute BEAR to carve with any sort of precision. The emblem took me about 3 hrs to do but the inletting took about 6 hrs. Looks ok if you don't look too closely. Next time I will choose some wood which is more friendly. My Son in law will appreciate his new Christmas gift I hope.

It looks great! Amboyna burl would be tough to inlay - but there are others that are worse. Nice job.

Very nice job........................that looks tough to do!

looks good to me, inlaying can be as easy or as difficult as you choose to make it

That looks like ALOT of work man , I'd take up woodburning right quick if it were me though

That is really nice work. How did you go about inlaying the initials? What sort of tools and bits did you use?
I will be glad to show you how to cut your letters. I do those everyday, and they take just minutes with the right tools. It is like anything really easy to do with just a little know how and the tools. Feel free to holler at me, I will be glad to help in anyway I can.
God Bless
Mike Pardue
432-894-7600

How I did the inlay...Probably not the best way but the only way I figured out; After cutting out the initials, I tapered them so the front was a little wider making it a wedge fit into the groove. Then I bent/shaped the initials to the shape of the surface of the wood, rounded. then I stuck the initials to the wood in place using super glue which has great peel strength but poor shear strength. Then I scribed around the letters very carefully to get next to the outer outline of the shape. Then I popped the letters loose and had a perfect picture scribed in the wood where I needed the "trench" to bury them. Starting with a chisle I made from an old jewelery file about 1/8 in across and started to mark out the profile. Then I took a small moto tool saw blade and very carefully cut out the groove and refined it until the letters sank into the groove(this last step took a lot of time). When the letters were just level with the surface I scarred/scratched the back of the letters for the epoxy to grab on to and epoxied the bottom of the letters in place leaving any gap on the sides open. There was a slight gap in a few places where I wasn't perfectly fitted. After the bottom was epoxied in place I took some of the wood and sanded it on some sandpaper to give me a lot of sawdust. This mixed with more epoxy filled whatever gaps there were around the initials. After it all dried over night I filed it down and sanded and finished. I've done this before but not in wood as stubborn as Amboyna burl.
Thx for the comments, you guys are great
mike

Mike,
I think you did an excellent job. If your son in law doesn't like it, something is bad wrong with him! Lots of real craftsmanship in a super looking knife.

Phil

I think you did a great job on that detail work. Thanks for sharing how you do it.

SUPER work Mike!!

At 9 hours of work, you know why you don't see that a lot on custom orders, the cost is prohibitive.

I had thought the reason custom knives are so expensive it that the makers were trying to get rich in one knife, that is until I started making them myself. After pricing some of the materials and finding just how much time went in to the work, I decided that most custom knives are a real bargain.

Dale

Practically everyone on this site who sells their stuff has prices that don't reflect the true amount of hours times a decent wage for the work.
What a shame, but that is the market. This is complicated by the fact that you cannot see the quality of workmanship until you have paid and receive the knife. We who do this work have a standard of craftsmanship which is a lot higher than the retail stuff in the storefronts. I bought a knife from Mike Hoover and can't believe how he can sell these things so inexpensively. I can guess, with a fair amount of knowledge, how much labor went into the knife and there's just not a market for a fair wage. If I could make $15 per hr I would not be giving them away. So far, I have given all my brothers at least 1 plus cousins, sons in law, nephews, grandson, Dad, etc. Love doing it but wish it paid a decent wage. One good thing, I can see junk from a mile away, some of the time. LOL
mike penn

Dale and Mike, I think you guys hit the nail on the head there. It's a good thing we LIKE doing this stuff, otherwise it'd be one hell of a bad job to have

pmike5869 wrote: One good thing, I can see junk from a mile away, some of the time. LOL
mike penn

That is certainly true.
I went to the OKCA mini-show Saturday. I came home with a few nice old knives, but also over a dozen parts knives. Some of the parts knives are absolutely beautify,.......or were at one time.
I think what I am attracted is the "bones" of the knife; i.e., the structure of the knife, the design and the quality of the parts that make up the knife, even though they may be in part missing.

You can see junk a mile away, but you can also see quality even though the knife is 100 years old and has major portions of it missing.

Below is one of the knives I got at the show.
This Ulster happens to be mostly there, except for the blades.
Notice the beauty of the design, & quality of this old Ulster.

Dale

RE; a bad job to have... I worked for DOD for 36 yrs, always for someone who wasn't completely happy with the quality, quantity or speed of my efforts. Now, I like the guy I work for and we get along just great! (I'm retired) My true reward, regardless of the pay, is the OBJECT itself. My pride has no price. Every project I take on forces me to learn something new. I have never done the exact same thing twice in my workshop. I absolutely love the challenge and am NEVER discouraged if I fail. And, if things don't go just right, I call in sick!
mike