My New DIY "FS" Knife"
Posted: Mon Sep 14, 2015 12:00 pm
My new DIY FS Knife!
Way back in 1965, when I was scourging the pawn shops at Paddington – London, I saw an FS knife that pumped up my adrenalin! After a little haggling with the owner, I walked away on cloud 9 holding my new acquisition that had set me back, by 3 pounds & ten shillings!
Even to this day, this beauty enjoys a pride of place among my small collection of blades!
My recent foray into DYI blade making kindled an urge to replicate it, which I shared with fellow IFGian KSHITIJ. As luck would have it, he was gracious enough to provide me with a couple of blanks. This was almost 3 months ago and since then, a lot of elbow grease, time, patience & perseverance went into creating a replica, which turned out to be ’rubbing shoulders’ with the original one!
GETTING THE PROFILE
This was a challenge, especially to get an even & precise slope to the blade. Using an angle grinder successively with 60, 80 & 120 grit discs, I managed a near perfect contour. However for the final finish, I had to resort to a DREMEL mounted with 120 grit sleeves running at 15,000 rpm. The final polishing was done with a felt buffing disc, using moistened ‘Talcum Powder’ as the polishing compound. This was an ‘out of box idea’ as talc is a micro-fined powder, made out of soap stone that worked well without leaving any scratch marks on the blade!
HANDLE
As this required a lathe, I had to resort to the mercy of a friendly neighborhood machinist, who fortunately turned out an excellent job as per my design & instructions. In fact I slightly altered the profile to give it a ‘heft’ & ‘ergonomics’. The material used is Jindal high grade aluminum.
FINGER GUARD
2.5mm brass strips served the purpose well which were cut to shape, contoured, drilled & notched to accommodate the rat tail tang.
FINAL ASSEMBLY
The handles were anodized jet black (an alternate was to powder coat, but then it’s unlikely to withstand any scuffing / scratching during handling). With all the parts ready I used M-Seal in putting together…
My First DIY FS Knife!!!
• Blade: Carbon steel 75CR1
• Handle: Jindal Hi-impact Aluminum / Black anodized
• Finger guard: Brass
• Overall length: 11”
• Blade length: 6.5”
# A comparison - Left is the Original & Right is my humble effort!
Briha
Way back in 1965, when I was scourging the pawn shops at Paddington – London, I saw an FS knife that pumped up my adrenalin! After a little haggling with the owner, I walked away on cloud 9 holding my new acquisition that had set me back, by 3 pounds & ten shillings!
Even to this day, this beauty enjoys a pride of place among my small collection of blades!
My recent foray into DYI blade making kindled an urge to replicate it, which I shared with fellow IFGian KSHITIJ. As luck would have it, he was gracious enough to provide me with a couple of blanks. This was almost 3 months ago and since then, a lot of elbow grease, time, patience & perseverance went into creating a replica, which turned out to be ’rubbing shoulders’ with the original one!
GETTING THE PROFILE
This was a challenge, especially to get an even & precise slope to the blade. Using an angle grinder successively with 60, 80 & 120 grit discs, I managed a near perfect contour. However for the final finish, I had to resort to a DREMEL mounted with 120 grit sleeves running at 15,000 rpm. The final polishing was done with a felt buffing disc, using moistened ‘Talcum Powder’ as the polishing compound. This was an ‘out of box idea’ as talc is a micro-fined powder, made out of soap stone that worked well without leaving any scratch marks on the blade!
HANDLE
As this required a lathe, I had to resort to the mercy of a friendly neighborhood machinist, who fortunately turned out an excellent job as per my design & instructions. In fact I slightly altered the profile to give it a ‘heft’ & ‘ergonomics’. The material used is Jindal high grade aluminum.
FINGER GUARD
2.5mm brass strips served the purpose well which were cut to shape, contoured, drilled & notched to accommodate the rat tail tang.
FINAL ASSEMBLY
The handles were anodized jet black (an alternate was to powder coat, but then it’s unlikely to withstand any scuffing / scratching during handling). With all the parts ready I used M-Seal in putting together…
My First DIY FS Knife!!!
• Blade: Carbon steel 75CR1
• Handle: Jindal Hi-impact Aluminum / Black anodized
• Finger guard: Brass
• Overall length: 11”
• Blade length: 6.5”
# A comparison - Left is the Original & Right is my humble effort!
Briha