Rockwerks Lapidary Forum

Full size? Well, it's bigger than the mouse at least. So, this is my first real knife!!! It's a nice slab of Rich's Happy Camp Jade. These pics are the early stage, after I had shaped it on the 80g diamond grinder wheel. I cut in the indentations with the edge of the wheel. Nitty and gritty but it does the job! At this point it is sanded with 100g paper.







After some more sanding




After the hole was put in




Showing off!








Here are some shots of sanding out the hole. I used both sandpaper strips and leather strips soaked in SiC grit and water. The leather is great at higher grits such as 600and 1200. It didn't work so well at 120 and 220 grit. The sandpapers work well at the lower grits. I found it best to fold the sandpaper triple so it would flex yet not break too fast.









Thanx for looking, hope you like it.

Hi joe,
That looks nice, I can see you put a lot of hours into it, mostly manual. The green color looks good.
Thanks for showing us, the step by step is great.
Dan

Congrats on a first Joe! Time consuming project for sure. The green really looks great and I like the shape too.

Sheesh, what a show off, you ought to tell that knife he shouldnt show off so much no matter how good he looks. LOL

Joe,
I was following the steps and views really successfully until I got to the last picture. Something here is really WRONG! You definitely have to correct it! Your shop is not "standard rockhound messy". Come on mess it up so I can recognize what is going on!
Otherwise you are doing a great job on the knife!
Bob

Are you going to hollow grind it to get a razor edge?

Thanx gang!!
You're right Dan, a lot of hand sanding went into this. I learned so much while making this project. It was a lot of fun.
Ok Weesh, no TV for the knife tonite!
Thanx Bob! This knife was the largest flat area I have attempted to shine. It makes me appreciate the work that goes into your big cabs even more. The Dremel area is still clean because it is still new. I put the backboard/shelves in a couple weeks ago. Give me some time to normalize it!!!
Ken, I don't know anything about knifemaking. What is hollow grinding? It sounds interesting.

A hollow ground edge is produced by running the side of the blade along the curve of the wheel making a concave surface on both sides, converging at the cutting edge. This might be tricky with stone. If you try it, I would suggest practicing on a metal blade until you get the hang of it.

Wow! That DOES sound cool. I probably won't try it on this first knife but I gotta play with that idea on the next one. Thanx Ken!!

That is really nice Joe. Looks like a LOT of hours of work went into that. If I were you I would go with cloth backed sandpaper. I don't think they have it at your local Home Depot or Lowes though. I know that woodworking stores like Woodcraft carry it. The cloth rolls up into a nice neat tube and holds that shape really well. I use a lot of cloth backed paper for woodturning.

Thanx Tony! About 15 hours of time went into this. A LOT of learning was involved!!
Do they make the cloth backed paper with SiC grit? (Wet/dry paper)
I have cut up some old grinder belts to use the stiff backed sanding surface but most of this knife was done with Home Depot style paper. I didn't realize there was a difference. I don't know much about woodworking. I'll have to look for a wood working store in this area.

Exceptional knife. Like how you detailed how you obtained the hole and polishing.

Great job.

Is this knife for sushi? When you cut raw fish with a metal blade it actually reacts with the flesh of the fish and a picky tongue can pick it up. The best sushi chefs use abalone shell to cut fish. I can assure you from first hand knowledge that a jade knife would be the cats pajamas. You may have something here that would fetch good doe in Japan or San Francisco. I really think so at least.

Thanx guys! I always appreciate compliments.
Hmmm, since I'm not a sushi eater, you wouldn't wanna really hear my reaction to sushi! I tried it once but really didn't like it. I never thought of it. It's not really all that sharp. It would make a good scraper but It won't cut paper or anything I think. I wouldn't want to drop it on my toe!

Hi Joe,
Great to see you back on board! Been awhile, we missed your input. Hope all is well. Glad you are back!!!!
Dan

Hi Dan,
For awhile the board didn't work for me. My browser crashed bad if I tried to leave the index page. Now it seems to work again!!