V Grind Hammer Forged White Steel Kiridashi Liner Lock In Textured Green G10

What can I say. I liked the folder like this one that I did for my sister so much I decided I had to have one for myself. :-)

Same specs just slightly thicker G10 and a V grind blade instead of the one side grind model. I equipped mine with a pocket clip for right hand tip up carry and used black screws for the clip since I'm out of the shiny ones. Mine weighs more than the one for my sis which is the orange one right below this green one I did for myself. As shown this one weighs in at 3.5 ounces.

Just a reminder to those of you new to my blogger, drag your mouse on any picture and click on it through out my blog and you can bring it up to full size. 

Thanks for looking.

STR

Hunter Orange Left Handed Japanese White Steel Kiridashi Folder

My sister said to me that she really liked the Kiridashi I did for a customer when she saw it over on my Face Book account. She hinted that she'd like to have one for her birthday, 'to match her kitchen knives' but I know she really just wants it because its by her big brother. :-)

Anyway, being that she is a south paw (lefty) I figured it would be a good excuse to use this right hand grind blade since the smooth side of the blade is on the correct side to roll along on the detent ball in the lock. I assume most viewing here know that these style of folding knives have little ball bearings in the locks. These aid smoothness in the action and keep the blade tip down during carry preventing the blade from opening by gravity. I learned doing the V grind model and some past ones that the ball can feel somewhat grainy for a time if you don't do this so to me it was the perfect match up to have this blade laying around and a project it fit right into. This actually turned out quite well and it answered a question I had in my mind as to if I could make this blade work in my BUSSTR folder platform as well as my He-Man folder model which I did earlier for some folks and posted on other pages.

This is my first liner lock using one of these Japanese White Steel blades.
I can't say exactly what it is this hammer forged look does for me but I sure do like it! Its a bit of a challenge to make a differentially hardened blade work in any integral style folder design but when you do get it I must say its pretty dang nice. I used textured hunter orange G10 on this one and its .080 thick so it made for a light weight thin folder. The liners are .070 titanium on this one and the weight is 2.9 ounces. Its 4 and 5/8" closed and sports 3.125" of blade length when opened. The grind is right handed as I said on this one but that just means my left handed sis can experience what the rest of the world has been experiencing with Emerson knives and other chisel grind knives for years. I have a hunch she'll like it. Happy B-day Sis!

Thanks for looking.

STR

Sod BUSSTR Frame Lock

EDIT: I want to add right here at the top since it has been mentioned by some that on the 3rd of Oct. 2010 Howard Viele contacted me after I reached out to him on Facebook where we are both friends. In his contact he granted me permission to do his trademarked three hole pattern on the 8 blades and pocket clips I have like the one shown in this post. Thanks Howard. 
As a youth I always loved my CASE Sod Buster folders. As some of you guys that read here often know I have been making this BUSSTR folder for some time now offering both a liner and frame lock version of it with the frame lock being made from the 'Tac Ti' sheets of textured titanium I get from Tracy at USA knife maker supply. The only difference between this here model and my original is that the original usually had a clip point blade in it like all those shown here in my blog in older posts. For a change of pace I thought it was time to use one of these Soddie blades to see what it would come out like. This here is the first one using one of these blades. SOD Busters are such great knives in the field. They are so good for small game and food prep jobs that its hard not to like them if you are any kind of an outdoorsman at all. 
When my friend Dave at Great Lakes Waterjet suggested I do a Sod Buster blade shape in my BUSSTR folder I wondered to myself why I didn't think of that myself because I loved the idea and as a youth I carried one for  quite a few years going through high school. In my home town back in West Virginia where I grew up the schools still close for the first week of deer season to this day! It makes sense if you knew the area though cause there wouldn't be any teachers to teach school anyhow since they'd all be huntin! :-)  So, you can see why such a portable butcher shop blade like this would be a great friend to a guy like me growing up in the hills where we depended on the meat we bagged each year. I realize these days that you young whipper snappers skip school to go to the video game stores but in my day we skipped to go huntin'. Such was life where I grew up. 
Anyway, with my friend Dave's help I got my blades to use in the SOD Buster shape. Dave cut these patterns out for me from my sheets of 12C27 stainless steel and after I got em back I went to work and Peters Heat treat service did up the blades for me to 60 Rockwell hardness. Shown here are some of the recent folders I've done along side this here new one utilizing one of my Sod Buster blades. Each of these other folders shown with my Soddie is described in other posts. 
If you want to read up on those others just scroll down some and you'll find em. They are all 12C27 for the time being. Come later on I'll have some in S30V and D2 as well as the old stand by ATS34 again but for now I'm using up that 12C27 Sandvik steel and folks seem to be liking that a lot so I figure I'll be sticking with that as long as the feedback remains this positive. You know on paper this stuff is not all that impressive but there is something about it that just flat out works and folks like it! I must admit its won me over about as well as my customers. The stuff is great! 

Oh yeah. The blade on this here textured titanium model folder is 3 and 1/4" and the closed length is 4 and 11/16". Its a tad heavier due to the grind and the fact that the body is 1/8" longer than my Clip point BUSSTR. This one weighs 3.7 ounces. As you can see from looking the slab thickness on this model is just over 1/8" at .135 thickness 6Al-4V titanium for each side. The spacer/stand off in the rear is G10 pinned with 1/8" stainless barrels and T-8 torx screws. The pivot is a 3/16" 416 stainless that takes a T-15 torx driver to tighten or loosen and the pocket clip, also made by me is a .045 titanium mounted with 2-56 screws for T6 torx. As usual thanks for looking and stopping by my little neck of the woods. 


I've added two pictures of this that are winter shots. You can tell because the greenery is gone in the background. These show the new hand rubbed finish and scandi grind once it was completed. The first shots shown are still work in progress pics before the blade and edge were finished out. Just FYI. 



STR