CNC a knife frame? Anyone know a place that could do it?

[snorkel]

Anyone know of a place that could CNC a LB7 style frame from stainless steel?
I have been using Colonial LB125s or Sarge SK-142s as they are exact duplicates of a LB7 pattern, but they
don't have one piece frames and you can see the spot welds. They still look great when customized, but I would love to have
a solid one piece frame to work with.

Is this something that Great Lakes Water Jet could do?

Obviously they would have to be able to do it for a reasonable amount as I am no Donald Trump

[rangerbluedog]

I'm having a difficult time visualizing the frame you're talking about, but I don't think a water jet alone would work. Water jet can do two- dimensional profiles. I'm thinking what you want has bolsters at each end. Any machine shop with a CNC machining center could do what you want. However, with digitizing time, programming time, and setup time, most shops wouldn't touch it for under $200.
Now if ya wanted a hundred of them....

[coffeecup]

At least for prototypes, you might try to locate a hobby machinist or someone with a garage machine shop. Building a frame is just simple machine work-start from the correct flat size, mill the recesses, spot and drill the holes, then shape the sides. You might even want to just have the bar stock machined and do the rest of it yourself.

One of my friends in high school re-built a Buck 112 with a nickel frame, and I knew another guy who re-built a 110 in stainless with recessed grip panels. I've seen a couple that were re-built with mokume bolsters silver soldered to a silver or nickel panel (didn't get to talk to the builder on those, so I don't have details).

If you get real crazy and decide to do one in damascus, warn the machinist--tiny slag inclusions can play hell on a cutting edge. Or so I've heard. (I told him we threw that bar away because the welds weren't clean enough . . . )

Jim

[snorkel]

Yes, I could finish it myself, it would basically need the scale area cut out leaving a integral liner and bolster.
It can't be that big of a deal if a CAD drawing was done of it.

I can make them by pinning bolsters on to a liner, but it's just not the same as a integral liner and bolster, you can always see some imperfection when you pin, and soldering stainless is hit and miss for adhesion from what I have been reading.
Don't want bolsters falling off

[Darksev]

Give David a call at GLWJ. I know he could cut the frame, but I'm not sure about his CNC capabilites. If your going to have him cut your liners, make them about 1-2mm oversize as there can be some blowout on the back of the cut that may effect your tolerances (i.e. waterjet cuts are not perfectly square, they are slightly cone shaped, so the top edge of the cut is slightly smaller than the bottom edge is)