#enzonecker70

[ru-titley-knives]

Part 3 . Enzo necker70 work in progress.

 In part 3 we are preparing the scales for gluing up by drill the tang holes and rough shaping .

 With the CF scales and G-10 liners epoxied together and a full 24 hours passed allowing them to cure properly its time to drill the tang holes.

once you've removed any excess hardened glue that’s squeezed out and cured , a craft knife is the best tool here or you can sand it back but excess glue will clog up sanding belts .  I then tape the two scales together with both sets of orange liners on the inside and then tape the knife in the correct position to the scales . Make sure that there’s plenty of scale material all around the tang of the knife that you will remove later .

Using a drill press and vice and the correct sized drill bits carefully drill at a slow speed using either spare drill bits or the pins you're going to use to help keep the scales in place .

 Once the tang holes are all drilled remove the pins / drill bits and sever the tape holing the knife and scales together and mark the scales left / right .

 Its now time to remove excess CF scale material , this can be done either with a band saw or bastard files but is much faster with a flap sander in a angle grinder . Definitely wear full eye ,face and hearing protection at this and all sanding stages as CF dust  is harmful .

 Using the same drill bits to hold the scales onto the knifes tang clamp the handle and use the flap sander to remove the majority of excess CF material but do not go to mad and make sure to leave a small amount of cf material proud of the metal tang . 

You can then use a sanding drum in a Dremel type tool to further remove the cf material at a more controllable speed but again do not go all the way down to the metal of the tang

 Before gluing up its important to sort out and finish the front of the scales that part that will sit at the front of the knife where the blade meets the handle .

 Remove the blade and place the scales together using the drill bits as pins and then use a drum sander or the flap sander to shape the front of the scales . If using the drum sander in a drill always make sure that the drum turns away from you rather than towards you .

 When your happy with the shaping of the front of the scales  go through several grits of wet &dry sand paper to remove any tool marks or sanding scratches and to reveal the CF pattern .

As I plan to stone-wash the scales  later then 320 grit is fine enough but if you want a shiny CF look then sand up to at least 1500 grit and polish if you like shiny shiny . Check the scales are flush at the front by putting them back onto the knife and that you are happy with the fronts of the scales as once glued down these are harder to re sort out .

 Using a pencil I then mark around the front of the scales onto the blade itself , any metal before this line (ie under the scales ) needs to be roughed up with either sandpaper or cross hatched with a diamond type tool to help key the epoxy and the same done for the inside of the G-10 liners .

 Enzo and cf scales via http://www.heinnie.com/enzo-necker-70-flat

 Custom knives , sheaths and gear from [email protected]

[ru-titley-knives]

Part 2, Enzo 70 Work in progress.

 With the epoxied  carbon fiber scales now gluing up its time to sort out the blade itself .

Having decided upon using some carbon fiber rods and a cf tube for the pins and lanyard hole  that are wider than the existing tang holes I need to widen the x3 pin holes to fit the cf pins I want to use .

As its a live blade I carefully wrap the blade in thin cardboard from a recycled cereal packet and wrap with tape which will protect me from any accident whilst working on the knife .

 In picture two you can see I’m using a diamond bit in a Dremel type tool to widen the tang holes to fit the cf pins . As its a stainless blade the tang is quite hard and my drill press wouldn’t touch it so the holes have to be widened by hand . This takes some time using the diamond bit in a circular motion until the cf pins fit the newly widened holes  if it starts to get hot then dunk in some cool water .

 Next I need to prepare the blade for etching , the tang is quite shiny on these blades so I’m going to rough it up using a coarse mop in a drill  which will also help the epoxy key better when I come to glue the scales on latter .

.  Eye and hearing protection is a must here and I also wear a thick leather  workshop apron .This is also done with the cardboard blade protector on (not shown in photo ) and always make sure that the drill rotates away from you  just in case the blade snags and is sent spinning away from you rather than straight towards you .

 After the mop we thoroughly de -grease the whole blade with acetone prior to etching .

 I’m currently using ready mixed Ferric Chloride to etch blades , Ferric is a salt based etching system often used in computer board printing it is highly corrosive to skin and also a skin irritant so always wear long rubber gloves and I would also seriously suggest eye protection .

 After de- greasing  I thread some cord through the tang hole and as its quite a long blade use a recycled plastic bottle to etch in . Stainless blades always seem to take longer than carbon steel blades to etch so keep checking on it to make sure its etching to the desired darkness you want .

 When your happy with the color of your etch remove and then counter act the etch using bicarb of soda mixed in warm water this will fizz a bit but will kill the etch from further etching  and then wash the whole blade under warm running water to remove any etch residue .

I’m then going to stone-wash the etched blade using glass marbles and a tumble drier . Allow the blade to dry and prepare your plastic container . Ideally this wants to be a screw top container with thick plastic walls here I’m using a recycled whey bulking powder container. put your marbles and the blade into the container with a good squirt of WD40 type oil screw the lid on tight and tape it up well to prevent accidental opening .

I then like to parcel wrap the container in an old workshop towel using 550 para-cord to hog tie it up . Always tumble on a low heat setting and if you don’t own the drier ask permission of the owner first .

You can check on it after 5 min’s though with stainless 10 min’s normally seems to work best. The blade will be dirty but a quick clean up with acetone will remove any oily residue  . If your not happy with the finish , re tighten the lid, re tape and re wrap and give it another 10 min cycle .  The edge will now be quite blunt   but can be resharpened latter when all work has ceased .

 Enzo 70 blade here in UK  http://www.heinnie.com/enzo-necker-70-flat

Custom knives , sheaths and gear from [email protected]

[ru-titley-knives]

Enzo necker 70 flat .

 Kindly sent to me by the good folks @heinniehaynes to scale up , test and review the full flat version of the Enzo necker .

These Sandvick 12c27 stainless neckers are proving very popular among UK bushcrafters as they are also available in a Scandi grind  and it will work great as a back up to a main bushcraft knife or when coupled with just an axe .

 They can be simply wrapped in 550 cord with a kydex sheath or fully scaled up with a leather bushcraft sheath and are also proving a real hit with folks wanting to make there own neckers without the time or expense of making their own knives .

 Heinnie’s also sent me a pair of the K&G CF twill scales they also sell to scale the Enzo necker in .  These are generous sized scales measuring 12.7cm x 3.8 cm x 0.8 .

CF is very lightweight but strong and is easy to work though the dust is harmful and can be an irritant so protective gear is a must when working with it .

The surface finish on the these scales really reminds me of the textured surface of peel ply G-10 which Ive not ever come across on carbon fiber before so am looking forward to testing it out  .

 My plan is to scale this up in a work in progress tutorial to post up here so you guys who've always wanted to have a go at scaling a full tang knife can use it if you wish as a tutorial .

Available in UK via http://www.heinnie.com/enzo-necker-70-flat

K&G cf scales here http://www.heinnie.com/k-g-carbon-fibre-twill-handle-material