Really knuckled down to reach the final objective on the 2014 Run Ranger Run knife. The sacrifice is worth it knowing this helps our veteran brothers and sisters who deserve nothing but our best. This is the final installment on the build, I have pretty much shown each significant step in the building process of a one of a kind knife made from a USA "Bastard" mill cut file.
As you can see in the earlier post I started 2 knives in case something went wrong. Well "Murphy" showed up and things went wrong. I learned this lesson a long time ago, always have a back up plan!
The handle material I selected is black G10, yellow spacer, and topped it off with material called "Lighting Strike Carbon Fiber. A 12"x12"x1/8" thick sheet cost $120.00 dollars, its got a copper wire filament that when finished has a very incredible look. On the off side its hard to work with and really nasty stuff in general. All the material is cut and then epoxied together.
Gluing up the handles, they get placed between plates and clamped up to cure.
Then the handles get matched up with the knife and the holes get spotted for drilling.
Once the holes are drilled the handles get rough cut on the band-saw then fitted to the knife for profiling on the grinder.
At this point the handles are fitted, rough profiled and ready for refinement, going up in higher sanding grits.
They come on and off several times, in this case its to profile the fronts!
At this point the handles are completely shaped. I hand finish from this point by placing the knife in a special vise and begin sanding think shoe shine! I take it to 400 grit, then it goes to the buffer and polished
Once the handles are done, I do the same thing to the knife and begin to finalize the grinds. Once again I continue to higher and higher grits. I decided at this point to turn it into a re-curved profile, which in my opinion is one of the designs that really stays sharp!
Once the blade is finished out I add my makers mark. The process is called "Etching", the material is a small stencil, a ground is applied and a pad with chemical solution is applied and it burns the mark into the steel.
Mark is complete
Before the final finish is applied I begin making the kydex sheath. I chose O.D. Green front with a black back. The kydex is heated up and then it all goes in a foam padded press. When you clamp it all down the kydex molds itself to the shape of the knife. At this point I am marking the holes for the eyelets that will hold it all together. Once marked they get drilled and and then the sheath is cut, ground and finished.
RLTW!
SAR
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