beetle

Sometimes when certain materials are missing due delay in delivery I start making rare things . By gathering different scrape pieces of material together new ideas come true . The beetle was first designed to be a big keychain knife . My goal here ? Some fully rounded knife with maximum carry comfort , easy opening . Finely it became oval in shape instead of a nice rounded knife . It’s of course prototype and a lot of reshaping has to be done .

grinding jig

After some trials and errors I decided to make a new jig to hold my blade during grinding . It’s a cheap, stable and workable . It gives more control and the ability to grind small parts . A simple screw enables fine-tuning of the blade-angle to the grinding belt .

It’s made from one piece of wood  . 4 screws are holding the wood together , 1 screw for angle setup and 1 to fix the blade . Easy built within an hour without specialized tools . The screw at the back is too long but that’s only to show how it works.

Here a closer view about the blade setup

A small piece of metal acts as bumper for the grinding belt and helps while grinding the ricasso . The edge of this bumper should always be parallel to the edge of your grinding belt .Use it on both sides to grind the same ricasso. This blade is one of the 10 stowaway folders I am working on so the grinding marks are not finished yet , but of course you’ll need them.

I suggest to try it and of course … let me know about your experiences.

new stowaway folders

You could already see it in the banner of my blog.These are the kind of folders I am working on this year.I would make lot’s of them in different colours and finish.Of course if you like them.They are small but still comfortable to use.One is with a bowie styled blade, the other more warncliff .