How I make Flipper's  

 

 Part 1     Part 2  
 

 

  
  This is not intended to be a 'how-to' or a guide to knife making, it's simply a pictorial with some explanation to show how I make a flipper. Part of the reason I'm showing this is to clear up any confusion about terms like handmade, sole authorship, custom and mid-tech.  
     
  Not too long ago I heard someone refer to my knives as "mid-tech", I've been a little confused over the years about labeling my knives but 'mid-tech' is one label that does NOT fit my knives. As you will see in my pictorial, all of my equipment is pretty low tech, two thing's I do that cause some of the confusion are: have parts for knives that I am making multiples of waterjet cut and making "models" (some nearly identical) as opposed to every knife being a one of a kind.  Having some parts waterjet cut is essential for me to be competitive and make a living as a full time knifemaker and is something I have done when I know that I will be making more than five of a certain style or model, I normally have both liners and the blade cut, the pivot hole and stop pin hole are "spotted" (a very small hole) and recently I have been having the stop pin slot cut under sized so that when I machine the slot it comes out a little neater. The parts are cut slightly over sized because it's important that I be able to profile the knife when assembled so that all parts meet up properly, you'll see in the photos that this is not a case of taking parts out of a bin and putting them together.  
     
  Handmade or sole authorship are labels that I think rightfully belong to a few makers out there who truly make every last part of the knife themselves.  I buy pivots, screws and stop pins, other than having to size them I have nothing to do with manufacturing them so I cannot claim "sole authorship". I use drill presses, grinders buffers and in some cases waterjet so I also don't think I should claim the label "handmade".  
     
  Custom is, I think the best label to put on my knives despite the fact that I make a lot of "models", each knife is hand ground, profiled, polished, drilled, heat treated, ect... by me. I grind my blades freehand without the use of guides, I do NOT own a CNC of any kind nor do I have access to one. I try to take a model and make it serve different purposes, I can make a model 9 into a dress knife, edc, tactical or even  an art knife starting with the same profile liners and blade.  
     
  Anyway, on with the pictorial. This will be divided into two parts because I won't be finishing the knife until I get back from the Rocky mountain knife show in mid Nov.. I did these photos early this week then went on to get other orders and some knives that are going to the show ready to heat treat. I heat treated them today but I have to work on the show knives and an earlier order over the next two weeks.  
     

 

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