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New Penny Knife in the Works

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44-henry

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I am making a couple of penny knifes and took a few photos of the handle as it went through various stages on the lathe, thought some of you might like a look.

The following shots were taken on my little 7x12 mini lathe. People more experienced on a wood lathe than me would laugh, but for someone who only occasionally does wood turning I find I have better control with a metal lathe.

I start with a squared up 1.25 inch blank (cherry in this case) and center punch and drill both ends. The blank is mounted using a homemade drive center in the headstock end and a live center in the tailstock. At this point a first pass has been run which knocked off the corners.

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The next shot is further progression until the blank is round in the region that I am working with. The ball end on my handle measures about .840, but I turn it down to a bit over that to allow for some shaping.

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Next I use a cardboard template that I made to scribe in the important features and dimensions.

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Though I did not take a lot of pictures at this stage, I find when doing tapers it is better to turn down the piece in steps. I measure several points across the diameter on my template and turn to the approximate diameter at these points. After this is finished I "grind" the surface flat blending the marks in using a piece of sandpaper glued to a board that is wide enough to cover the entire area.

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At this point I mount a rest in my tool post and use a special gouge that I made to turn the ball portion of the handle. Once this has been accomplished I use special forming tools to cut in the two decorative round grooves into the handle.

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Here is a shot at the handle as it nears completions. Only thing left to do is to cut in the decorative rings which I do with a very fine pointed v cutting tool.

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Here is a shot of a different knife, but using the same pattern. This one has had the blade drilled and a temporary pivot pin is in place to check function. All that is left is the heat treatment of the blade and riveting it into place. I finish the handles by chucking them by a collet in my lathe and do final sanding and finishing on the lathe.

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Thats a good looking knife along with some great progress photos!! Do you use metal lathe bits to start the squared stock? Do you do your own heat treat, if so, what type of steel is the blade composed of? Would you mind saying where you got your mini lathe from? Thanks again for sharing!
 
airborne1 said:
Thats a good looking knife along with some great progress photos!! Do you use metal lathe bits to start the squared stock? Do you do your own heat treat, if so, what type of steel is the blade composed of? Would you mind saying where you got your mini lathe from? Thanks again for sharing!

I use a lot of high speed steel lathe bits that I grind to fit what I am doing, about the only place I use conventional wood turning tools is on the ball end of the handle. The blade on these knives are 1095, though I also use 1075/80 and 01.

The lathe is a 7x12 distributed by Pro Tech. It is really no different than ones sold by Grizzly, Harbor Freight, etc. I have a much larger metal lathe in my basement, but really like this little one for smaller projects and when properly set up/adjusted it is easily capable of holding tolerances of .001 or better. I also like the fact that it has much higher spindle speeds than my older Rockwell lathe has and the variable speed control is a nice feature as well.
 
Alexander, thank you for sharing your penny knife build. Great photos. I have long wanted to make one of these myself, turning the handle on a treadle or pole lathe. I also have a small metal lathe that I must learn to use.
 
Your final result is just fine, real nice.
Your turning technique is good also. But, for me, the most difficult step would be cutting the turned piece in exact halves. When I do something like that (BTW, not an original idea to me), I start with two pieces of wood and glue them together with a piece of newspaper in between. Then turn. After turning it is easy to split them apart exactly on the newspaper-glue seam. Sand the junk off and you are good to go.
 
Rifleman1776 said:
Your final result is just fine, real nice.
Your turning technique is good also. But, for me, the most difficult step would be cutting the turned piece in exact halves. When I do something like that (BTW, not an original idea to me), I start with two pieces of wood and glue them together with a piece of newspaper in between. Then turn. After turning it is easy to split them apart exactly on the newspaper-glue seam. Sand the junk off and you are good to go.

Cutting the slot can be a challenge, but I created a fixture that mounts the piece between centers and than use my mill to run the slot with either a slitting saw, or in this case an abrasive disk (I prefer the saw). The handles are not completely split are are only relieved to fit the blade in its closed position. I invariably end up doing a bit of scraping to get the final fit which is accomplished with a scraper that I made from an old file that fits the slot thickness. Here is my slotting fixture.

Pinhole%20slotting%20fixture.jpg
 
Here is a slot sawing jig I made and use. Basically a miter box. The saw is a sawsall blade mounted in a handle. The box has hardened 01 plates mounted to it that have saw slots. The piece to be slotted is aligned to the saw slots by the point marks left from the lathe. You saw to the point mark at the rear, which is dead on half way, and on the front end to the wood shoulder cut for the ferrule. Can't miss. The two blocks inside the box are adjustable and lock the knife grip in place, and the rear box mount is adjustable for fore and aft lock down. All of this is mounted on a block of scrapped counter top. Works super good! Only takes a few minutes once the piece is aligned and locked

 
Rifleman1776 said:
You and Wick sure trumped my idea with skill and cleverness. :(

:wink: :applause: Great ideas. I may steal :shocked2: Oops...plagerize...Uh....borrow.

I really do like Wick's fixture, I have started building one similar to it as I think it has some definite advantages over mine. The one I made works perfectly as long as you have a milling machine to attach it to. Here is a handle that I am working on today that I just cut on the fixture.

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Here is a shot of the semi finished slot after cutting the blank free.

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The circular blade does do a nice clean cut, but the big problem with it is that I still have to do some cleanup work later on to get the depth right in the handle and the fixture does not allow me to use it for this after I have cut the ends off the blank that contained the original center marks. Wicks would be much more efficient for this task.
 
I use a somewhat similar method for mine. I leave the carved blank whole, and affix the square end level in a mill/drill press vise. I then chuck a dremel bit with a cut off wheel in the drill press and slide the blank along it to make the slot. Only issue is that a cut off wheel only lasts 1-2 knives then it all wears away. I have the drill press set as fast as it will go.
 
Leaping Lizards batman- is that your shop or are you using a school shop!!!
Nice knife- on the blade rivet- on a penny knife if it is off center- or below the center line, if you try to peen hammer the rivet on an angle- I did it but I did not do it well. Do you peen hammer or just glue in place?
And......some guy told me the slots on some originals were V shaped. I've never seen an original and I always just used a saw- thought I'd mention it in case anyone knows.
And- state of the art penny knife. Good job.
 
I peen all the rivets with these knives, but gluing would be tempting as it is not an easy thing to do neatly. Still, it doesn't look like the early makers attempted perfection in their work in this area based on the examples I have seen. Here is one of the last ones I made.

Penny%20Knife%20Finished.jpg


Penny%20Knife%20Finished%202.jpg
 
Here is another that I have not put the finish on yet.

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Not sure about the slots on the originals, mine are v shsped on the ends because of the circular saw shape that I use and it does seem to fit the bade better.
 
How are you forming the ferrule? I was using pipe or conduit which is thick enough the retain its shape. The Valley Forge Museum has two penny knives of the George C. Newmann collection and the curator looked at them for me and noted sheet metal was used (I forgot to ask the thickness) but it was too thin to retain its shape so the ends were crimped into the groove (about 4mm) and held there by the blade tang and rivet. As far as I could tell the slot was flat and broke through the top in front but was covered by the ferrule and then extended out the back maybe half way top to bottom- this leaves less wood and a weaker handle but on those two knives such was the deal. Unfortunately I don't think Newmann gave the documentation on the knives and I don't know how other knives were made.
The Clark knife in Ft. Clatsop- I think the ferrule is thicker on that one. The Russell book is wrong on that knife- a pure penny knife with no spring.
 
crockett said:
How are you forming the ferrule? I was using pipe or conduit which is thick enough the retain its shape. The Valley Forge Museum has two penny knives of the George C. Newmann collection and the curator looked at them for me and noted sheet metal was used (I forgot to ask the thickness) but it was too thin to retain its shape so the ends were crimped into the groove (about 4mm) and held there by the blade tang and rivet. As far as I could tell the slot was flat and broke through the top in front but was covered by the ferrule and then extended out the back maybe half way top to bottom- this leaves less wood and a weaker handle but on those two knives such was the deal. Unfortunately I don't think Newmann gave the documentation on the knives and I don't know how other knives were made.
The Clark knife in Ft. Clatsop- I think the ferrule is thicker on that one. The Russell book is wrong on that knife- a pure penny knife with no spring.

I use a thin steel sheet which measures about .024, I believe that would be 24 gauge. I use the same technique that Chapman wrote about in his book where the strip is formed around the tennon with each end tucked inside the slot about half way. The resulting ferrule is than tightened using a circular swage. This has some definite benefits as it provides a more durable bearing surface for the blade which is sandwiched between steel rather than wood; however, I have never seen it used before on any of the older knives that I have examined. These have always been the type of ferrule that wraps around partially leaving a slot in the front for the blade. I have not had the opportunity to see the knives in the Newmann collection, but would very much like to see photos of them sometime. The use of electrical conduit sounds like it would work fine once the coating was removed and would definitely save time over forming it out of sheet steel.

The slots on my knives go about half depth through the handle at the front, but terminate short of cutting through the butt end. Most of the older knives that I have examined seem to run the slot all the way through with constant depth, though I have seen a few like mine that did not. I like to leave a bit of wood at the back of the slot on the front end to support the blade in its open position, though the blade rests on the ferrule, the thinness of the metal does not allow a great deal of support to the blade without the additional wood.

I would really like to find some information about these knives and their place in the 18th century. I suspect that they were being made in several countries during that period, but most prominently perhaps in and around Spain, France, and Poland, but since it is a style that has never completely gone out of production dating examples is difficult with the information that we currently have. Some of the knives being sold as authentic 18th century examples are probably considerably newer than that, but until more research is done it is hard to really know.
 
I saw one European Penny Knife (France or Spain- I forget) where the ferrule was square and brass and at first I thought in was a spring back with a shoulder bolster.
On the Newmann knives- without accurate documentation one treads on thin ice- just relaying what I was told. The big deal on the Newmann knives is this feature of the ferrule just being crimped slightly into the slot. On the first penny knife I made I screwed up and made the slot too wide. What to do? I bent the ferrule ends into the slot to take up the space and- as you said- this creates a metal to metal situation that I think is functionally better. The next penny knife I made had a plumbing pipe ferrule that needed no crimp and was too thick to bend anyway but that metal is so thick that you can't easily peen the rivet tight. The tang to wood has to be right. For some reason the wood in time absorbed moisture and the fit became much tighter where it isn't so easy to open and close the blade.
I've spent a little time on the research. What surprised me was there was very little information on North American penny knives with the metal ferrules. At least I didn't find very much. Some was the Russell book citing some that cited something that cited an already cited source- the appearance of documentation but a dog chasing its tail in many instances. I wish I could have gotten more data on the Bunker Hill knife- that and the Clark knife in Ft. Clatsop were about the only documented ones I found.
 
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