Knifemaking Tuesdays Week 90 - Viking head inlay Media

Here's a pretty awesome project I did that I'm very happy with. I got to machine some really tight tolerances in different materials and it worked out great! I made my viking head logo as a two material inlay and I glued it into some titanium knife handles, then sanded it all flat and tumbled it all. The results were amazing. Up until now I've never tried very hard to get an inlay to fit "perfectly" with zero or practically zero gaps, but I nailed it here. The carbon fiber and micarta inlays fit together with zero clearance and they pressed together nicely. They fit into the handles with 0.001" wall clearance. The trick is very accurate tool paths (thanks to HSMWorks) and measuring the actual diameter of the endmills you're using, protip: they're smaller than the stated size! Almost all endmills are like this. My 0.0625" endmills measured out to be around 0.0610", which is a substantial difference when you're trying to make things fit without a gap.

Thanks for watching, enjoy!