Knifemaking Tuesdays Week 64 Torx milling, lots of Norseman knives Media

Published: 11 years ago

This week we're getting a lot more knives put together! Erik starts out by showing a bunch of the awesome anodizing he's been up to.

By 3:30 he works on a bunch of neat little titanium bits. These are the lock stops that we're using on our knives, they're a variation of the Hinderer Lockbar Stabilizer, which we're using under license from them. But our version is way cooler. For this part of the job he's got them set up in softjaws in a vise and is milling a teensy tiny Torx T9 pattern into the head with a 0.022" endmill (it's so tiny!). Then he uses a drag engraver to write some text on top. These are smaller than a dime.

At 7:30 John goes over a bunch of the knives nearing completion and shows them in detail. The accuracy and tolerances on this batch is just wonderful, which allows some cool anodizing tricks.

By 11:00 John starts engraving all the blades with the steel type and individual serial number. First he uses the digital probe to measure the exact location of each and every blade, ensuring a perfect engraving depth. Then he engraves them with a 2L engraving endmill. These blades are hard at 60.5 rockwell C, so they wear out tools fairly quickly. But the engravings are so shiny!

At 13:09 John finally starts making the new thumbstuds. This is the last component that has to be made in order to finish this batch of knives. They're made fairly unconventionally, from a sheet of titanium instead of from round stock, but the results are worth it because they are absolutely perfect.

Thanks for watching!
sovrn