Knifemaking Tuesdays Week 57 - Norseman Blades and fixtures

Рет қаралды 50,398

11 жыл бұрын

We're making fixtures and Norseman knife blades this week!
www.GrimsmoKnives.com
Our long awaited third batch of Norseman knives is finally under way! For this week's video I made a few new blades to test out all the changes I've been making to the design over the past few months. All new fixtures, all new CNC code, as well as some subtle yet wonderful design changes.
The first few minutes show how I made 6 new fixtures from 3/4" 6061 aluminum, 18" wide by 12" tall. I held them down to my vacuum table and faced them all with Tormach's Superfly facemill. Doing them all back to back ensured that they were all exactly the same thickness, making pallet changes easy and repeatable. I also bored 18mm holes in the back of each pallet so that I could press in the 12mm bushings that align to the VacMagic vacuum pallet changer. Then I flipped them and faced the top side to a thickness of 0.700. I also made a new vacuum grid plate that's 18x12, to go along with the 14"x14" one that I have. My table travel is 18"x10", so I like having a vacuum grid fixture that's the same size as my travel, it lets me maximize the table space.
In this video I show a lot of cool endmills for cutting out the blades, how they're being used, as well as closeups with descriptions. Almost all of the endmills that I use these days are from www.LakeshoreCarbide.com. I even had one custom made for a specific purpose! I show closeups of their rougher, finisher, and my custom endmill, as well as all of them being used on my blades.
The first blade had a few minor issues, no biggie, I changed the code a bit and ran a second blade. The second one turned out great except for one minor problem, the corner rounder went too deep. Again, no biggie, easy fix. Now after a few more changes I'm ready to run an entire pallet of 12 blades. We're making 65 knives in this batch, so we're going to be busy!
Thank you for watching, and I will try to get the videos back onto a more regular schedule. It's not easy, this 25 minute video took me 4 hours to edit!

Пікірлер: 147

@kingjamez80 11 жыл бұрын

And whoever complains about your videos should stuff it..... Do them how you want, it's your video and you do a great job!

@GeofDumas 11 жыл бұрын

a 1in radius mill is a genius idea - well done!

@JohnGrimsmo 11 жыл бұрын

Finally! I'm writing the code for the lefty blades tonight and will cut them tomorrow. Can't guarantee it'll make it on film, but somewhere along the line the lefty knives will definitely get filmed.

@rlockwood2 11 жыл бұрын

I like working this way as often as possible. It doesnt typically save any time, but often makes for an easier work flow. It can also sometimes save on bolt swapping, but you'll go crazy trying to optimize every last bit of every part-- and will likely spend more time optimizing than you ever save :) Its important to remember that if the machine is running un-attended, and you're achieving your part quota, cycle time is largely insignificant.

@ErwinEnterprises 11 жыл бұрын

I've never seen a ringed pallet. didn't think that was possible w/o heat treat, grind, and lap. Good Job.

@JohnGrimsmo 11 жыл бұрын

Not all are, but most are. Because it rocks. It's relatively easy to get it to work right, simple design, and customers love it. Liner locks are also popular. Button locks are less popular but just as awesome, if not awesomer, than frame locks, but hard to make them perfect, especially for flippers.

@JohnsonKnives 6 жыл бұрын

Watching these older videos just makes my day.

@JohnGrimsmo 11 жыл бұрын

That's a really good suggestion. I briefly considered it while coding, but didn't think about it too much so I just went with it. I had to use the finishing tool on the flat tanto portion on the spine of the blade, so I figured might as well do the edge too. But you're right, that's a few inches of cut per blade that the endmill doesn't have to do.

@JohnGrimsmo 11 жыл бұрын

Like butter is right! Most of the blades are done, Erik should get 'em all ready for HT tomorrow. Probably do bearings next, the ones I made turned out sweet! 1/16" balls on a 3/16" hole, 10 balls spaced as far from centerline as I could get 'em. Should be a cool video.

@JohnGrimsmo 11 жыл бұрын

Thanks Karl (or Alex). For some op's I do 5 thou, but the rougher leaves a wavy surface so I wanted to make sure it gets taken off, so 10 thou worked great. If I'm using a regular 4flute and a finisher, or just a regular endmill with a finish pass, I'll do 5 thou.

@JohnGrimsmo 11 жыл бұрын

Yep, always climb mill even when roughing. For slotting it really doesn't matter especially if you're doing a climb finishing pass.

@KPSince1953 11 жыл бұрын

Thank you John! Not enough makers look after the lefty community. A surprisingly high proportion of people are left handed (1 in 10 i think). Most have learned to use right handed knives but its still a massive market left untapped. When you get around to making the integral I would love to have a lefty version.

@shadymattuk 11 жыл бұрын

Great stuff, John. Cant wait to see the dammy Norseman. Damascus pocket clips will look fantastic too!

@JohnGrimsmo 11 жыл бұрын

Yup I did get the pressure sensor, it's saved me many times!

@JohnGrimsmo 10 жыл бұрын

The coolant recirculates, it drains to a tank under the machine and there's a pump in the tank that spits it back to the cutting tool again.

@teletubbs2 11 жыл бұрын

Thrilled to see you making videos again, John. :D

@JohnGrimsmo 11 жыл бұрын

I engrave at max 5,100 rpm. For these stainless blades most of the tools are run at 4000-5100, with the exception of the toroid (2120) and a cobalt 1/8" drill (1900). And yes, the ATC has an internal air blast that clears chips and coolant, works great at 120psi!

@JohnGrimsmo 11 жыл бұрын

Yup, the compressor noise was especially bad in this video, bothered the crap out of me while editing it. That Jun-Air looks sweet, but again, not big enough for my needs. I might build an enclosure box with sound deadening for my new one, as long as it doesn't overheat.

@capnthepeafarmer 9 жыл бұрын

That air suction you're feeling is "wringing". very cool natural phenomenon.

@JohnGrimsmo 11 жыл бұрын

Climb mill for EVERYTHING. If you haven't seen the difference in surface finish between climb mill and conventional mill, chuck up a block of aluminum in a vise and skim the side of it with an endmill. clockwise around the outside is climb, ccw is conventional. Just do this manually with the keyboard. Climb leaves a nice finish, conventional leaves weird burrs stuck everywhere. Also doing rough passes and finish passes, even with the same endmill, makes a nicer finish. Leave 0.010. Cheers!