grs knife holder or ???????

A question to the knife engravers, how do you secure your knifes in your vise to engrave it..At present i,m using a grs knifeholders contour vise mounted in a grs positioning vise, it works but it,s giving me problems with both fixed blades and folders..Knife engraving is a whole new ballgame to me, so it may be me and not the contour holder giving me problems...

the perfect solution is the product from grs called thermo loc. it's a hard plastic that comes in stick form. cut it to convenient lengths, heat with a blowdrier or heat gun mold it to your item and you're in business. when finished engraving, reheat remove the plastic pieces, end of story. buy a bag of this stuff, you'll love it. it takes maybe 5 minutes to get used to using it ! a bag of this will last forever, as it can be reused over and over.

Hi Bill,

The tricks I know about holding knives come from Ray Cover. For very fragile materials (such as Mother of Perl or Mastadon tusk) I will ususally take the time to make a squeeze board which is simply a piece of 1/2 or 5/8 inch plywood with the outline of the knife (with blade open) cut out of the center. The squeeze board is open on the butt end of the knife so it can be squeezed in the vise. Make sure the board is wide enough to give you a good inch or so all the way around the knife (for strength) except for the butt end. When you tighten your block against the squeeze board the pressure is evenly distributed rather than only on a few small areas. Plywood works well because it won't easily crack under pressure. Ray explains the squeeze board technique in his knife engraving video.

For more durable materials I will usually just pad the knife with a piece of glove leather heavy enough to guard it being marred by the engraving block's pins. A piece of old work glove leather is what I usually use. I engrave a lot of giraff and horse bone handled knives this way and have had no problems.

Some people use Thermolock (though I have never tried it for knives). Hot glue also works well. Apply some hot glue to a brass plate small enough to fit in the jaws of your engravers block and push the knife down into the glue it while it is still plyable. Hot glue can be easily released after it has hardened by gently prying while applying alcohol between the glue and the knife.

Hope this helps.

Bill, I also just started to engrave a Knife.

I used thermo lock. I hand molded it to fit the contour of the knife. Molded it around the vice top and into the holes on the top of the vice. What you end up with is a set of custom vice jaws. The knife snaps in and out of the thermo lock. It looks like it's going to work perfectly. I'm starting out with a very cheap knife no bone handles etc. Hopefully others with knife experience will comment on using thermo loc on more delicate objects.

Jeff

Jim
I brought Ray,s knife video a few months ago and was going to watch it when i had some slack time, but forgot about it until you mentioned it, I ,ll get it out and watch it....Monk i tried the thermo lock on a small case knife, but didn,t like the ideal of having to put heat to knife to remove knife from it..

You can make a 'better' fitting with ThermoLoc, a piece of Aluminum bar, and two small wood blocks.

Learned it at the Tuesday dinner / demo at GRS.

Set the two small wood blocks on the sides of your vise and balance the AL bar on them. The top of the bar should be about level with the top of your vise. Don't worry that it won't stay there - you're just getting the height right.

Heat up a wad of ThemoLoc and form it into a roll - just like those clay 'snakes' you used to make in Art class.

Here's the big tip for all the rest of the steps: ThemoLoc won't stick to most things but boy does it stick to itself!. You can use bits of plastic grocery bags to 'insulate' parts from each other so they won't stick.

Ok, fold that rope over your Al bar so you've got half of it going up past each side, right near the center. Open your vise up nice and wide and set the bar on the blocks. Close the vise down most of the way - I go with about 1/4" of ThermoLoc (let's call it 'TL' for the rest of this to save typing) on each side of the bar. It will also flow into the 'V' notch on the vise so it'll go right back into place later.

Fold the two 'arms' of the roll out away from the bar and across the top of your vise. Use a pair of scissors to split each arm into two halves and spread them to parallel the bar. Now take your object and lay it over the TL and start to form the TL around it. Be careful to keep the two 'halves' from sticking! I've found you can use the scissors to cut it free and then use grocery bag to keep them from touching again.

The idea is to form a nice, secure bed all the way around your object except for a small gap along the center line. For most things you can mold the TL to just below the surface of the object on the sides - keeps it from getting in your way. Once it's all done let it sit for 20 minutes or so to get cool, then open your vise and life the whole conglomeration out. You can twist the AL bar to open the 'jaws' of your fixture and pop the object out. For actual use you don't use the AL bar or wooden blocks - just pop your piece into place, set the fixture into your vise and tighten it down. The pressure from the vise will force the split fixture closed securely around your object.

I've got one I made for Zippo lighters that works so well I have to pry them out with a wooden stick. I took a tip and carved a second copy of the recess for the hinge pin on the opposite side so I can put the lighter in with either face up. I think I posted a thread abou this - I'll look and come back with a link if I can find it.

The trick to this is using enough - but not too much ThermoLoc. Too little and you can't form the fixture (so you just add a couple more sticks and reheat the whole mass). Too much just gives you a big, blobby fixture. Too much too much and you'll have excess you can carve off and save for later.

You only have so long to work before the TL cools too much to work, but as long as you got the major bits done you're ok - a litlte heat pen type blower will heat an area up enough to work. I've had to do that to 'refine' a fixture next to the object. I use a pencil heat gun made for scrapbooking. Just warm up a nickel sized patch and move it as needed.

The fixtures are reusable and recyclyable - if you're not going to do another matching object just heat it back up and make something else out of it.

Found the thread with better pictures and explanation of the Zippo holder split fixture click here

Bill,
While all these methods will work fine I have never found a better way than just using hot melt glue. It protects the surfaces that are already finished very well and yet releases with a simple squirt of alcohol. You can also seal up any open cavities into the knife with it. I glue the knife to either a varnished block of wood or to a round aluminum bar that has a flat cut on it. This allows me to rotate the knife in the vise to account for the curvature of the surfaces.

Many years ago in my antiques restoration shop, I used to use a thermosetting plastic (similar to today's Thermoloc and hot glue) to hold small carvings etc.

I would melt a blob of plastic on a small electric veneer iron we used when repairing veneered furniture. I would stick the piece I was working on into the plastic and turn the iron off. When it had cooled, I would grip the up-turned iron in a vice and do what ever had to be done. Releasing the piece was as simple as switching the iron back on!

Andy's solution sounds perfect, but for those who like reinventing the wheel, this similar veneer iron looks like it could be useful. You could dismantle the iron, do away with the long handle, shorten the lead and wire a connecter to the end of the lead so you don't have problems rotating the block with a long lead trailing after it.

Hi Bill, I use the GRS knife holder contour vise and have never had any problems with it. I just make sure I sheath the blade if I have to open it or it's a fixed blade. I find it's adjustments quite generous and it works well for me.

That being said I have also got the kit for making Thermoloc holders. The kit has the aluminium bar that Steve talks about but also has spacers for easy making of a holder of two halves. So you don't have to worry about heating the knife afterwards.

I haven't tried the hot glue method on knives but have on a hobo nickel and it does stick well but is a bit messy when you have to remove the glue I find.

Good luck and let us know how you get on.

Hi bill I prefer the Thermolock. After you engrave your knife just let it sit under a light bulb for 5-10 minutes and it will peal right off.

When you use thermoloc do you pack it into the blade space if it is a folder so it doesn't pinch, or do you do as Ray Cover does and make up a snug fitting piece of micarta that fits where the blade goes when folded so you don't bind up the blade action?

Bill, I didn't read all the post on this but all I've done so far is knives, I don't really plan on doing a whole lot of outside work, mainly I want to engrave the knives I'm making and a few knives for friends on occasion. Weldon Whitley showed me how he does his & I'm doing mine the same way, I've cut a piece of micarta about 1"x2"x5", and I've got a few others cut a little different, anyway, I'll chuck that up in my magna block, cover it with masking tape, cover the bottom side of the knife with masking tape, then squirt hot glue all over it and attach the knife to the micarta, It's worked great for me so far, on knives with Ivory, I'll put about 4-5 layers of masking tape on the knife to keep most of the heat off the Ivory. My two cents, hope it helps, Dwayne

bill: i never applied heat to the actual object. i mostly shielded the object if it was sensitive, with a piece of cardboard. that would be dangerous any way if you were workin with ivory or any other natural material.

kc: do you have a foto of the way you form that tl on your object for clamping ?

Monk,

When it's heated ThermoLoc is just like clay - soft and pliable (stiffening as it cools). Mostly I'm just pushing it around with my thumbs and giving off an occasional ouch! - at least at the start when it's hot.

The stuff flows somewhere between 150 - 200 degrees F (forget exactly where).

The only thing that's tricky with doing the 'clamping' fixtures is keeping the two sides separated and if you fail at that you can always cut them apart after the fixture cools. I have a 1/8" thick bar so I get a 1/8" gap between the two sides which is way more than you need for clamping down.

Someone with ThermoLoc, a camera / video camera, and a camera operator needs to make a tutorial on making fixtures. I've got all but the last one myself, unless I can convince the ever-indulgent wife to try it - and get the shots I want without exceeding her indulgence level.

HEY GRS FOLKS! Something like this would be a good selling tool for ThermoLoc and the nifty fixture set. Get stills as well as video - it's easier to study a still shot but easier to follow action via video.

KCSteve said:

Monk,

When it's heated ThermoLoc is just like clay - soft and pliable (stiffening as it cools). Mostly I'm just pushing it around with my thumbs and giving off an occasional ouch! - at least at the start when it's hot.

The stuff flows somewhere between 150 - 200 degrees F (forget exactly where).

The only thing that's tricky with doing the 'clamping' fixtures is keeping the two sides separated and if you fail at that you can always cut them apart after the fixture cools. I have a 1/8" thick bar so I get a 1/8" gap between the two sides which is way more than you need for clamping down.

Someone with ThermoLoc, a camera / video camera, and a camera operator needs to make a tutorial on making fixtures. I've got all but the last one myself, unless I can convince the ever-indulgent wife to try it - and get the shots I want without exceeding her indulgence level.

HEY GRS FOLKS! Something like this would be a good selling tool for ThermoLoc and the nifty fixture set. Get stills as well as video - it's easier to study a still shot but easier to follow action via video.

Click to expand...

Did this video ever happen

I have really enjoyed using the thermal lock kit from small to large items like pistol barrels. I have not tried the light bulb trick to release my work from it so that is next on my agenda, I do use a harbor freight heat gun to warm it up and a pair of welders gloves to. I do have a grs adjustable knife holder and I have set it aside to look at and prevent dust hitting my desk top, I hate to dust. The adjustable contour seems sound but you cannot get it tight enough to stop vibration, or if you overtighten the screws you end up pushing out the threaded bushing. This happened to me on the first time I used mine. I cannot however say anything good or bad about the hot glue as I have never tried it. I hope this helps someone.
Skill comes from diligence,

gcleaker said:

The adjustable contour seems sound but you cannot get it tight enough to stop vibration, or if you overtighten the screws you end up pushing out the threaded bushing. This happened to me on the first time I used mine.

Click to expand...

This settles it, thank you!



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Thermo loc all the way.

Has anyone use Bondo? I know Bob Evans uses them when I visited him.