Moon Framelock Build Day 6: Inlay Milling

Hey All,

We continue with the sixth day of the Moon Framelock build.  After angling the surface of the handle at 1.8 degrees, we used a roundover bit to round all the corners of the handle.  This leaves the surface perfectly smooth with an even roundover throughout, and mates up with the bolster roundover perfectly to leave a smooth hand feel.

Next we've started to mill out the inlay area.  Originally the idea was to mill a small and very intricate crop circle design, however it turns out to just not be feasible.  The tool for routing out the small inlay area, a .018 carbide end mill, was just too delicate to function sucessfully with titanium, so the inlay design has been redesigned for a larger insert.

The inlay on this first knife will be flush fitting orange G10.  By milling away the titanium in the handle and inlaying it with G10, not only is the knife a little more aesthetically appealing, but it also saves about a thrid of an ounce, not a lot, but enough to matter.

-Will

Moon Framelock Build Day 5: Flat Handle Milling

Hey All,

Today marks the fifth day of construction on the Moon framelock build.  With the gutting of the blade channel complete, the side profile of the knife could be milled along with the initial rough roundover of the handle, which is all done via CNC.  Here's some photographs of the handle starting to take on its final shape:

Notice the pivot hole and blade stop holes are already cut.  These are recesses for the heads of the screws.  Unlike most makers, I use a kind of shoulder bolt for both my pivots and stop pins.  Most knives on the market today use pins held in by pockets in the frame or held in place by small machine screws.  By using bolts that thread into the frame, I'm able to increase the strength of the pivot assembly by almost three fold over friction held and stop pins.

After profiling around the shape of the handle with a 1 inch carbide mill, you can now start to see the rough outline of the handle.  Note the blade/flipper channel towards the pivot side of the knife and the small, barely visible lanyard hole on the top of the knife near the butt.

With rough profiling done, it's time to start the edge roundover.  Using a 3/32nds roundover mill I can CNC round the bolster area.  This keeps the knife nice and comfortable in the pocket and in the hand, insuring there are no sharp edges where there shouldn't be. The rest of the handle will be rounded over once the handle side bevels are milled at their proper 1.8 degree angle to mate perfectly with the existing roundover on the bolster.  

More to come...

-Will

Moon Orion Standard SN19: Evolution of a Knife

Hey All,

I wanted to take a quick moment and show off my latest Orion, number 19, and also talk a little bit about some of the changes I've made to the model over the course of the run.  I've found over the course of this run of knives that there are some small changes that I could make to the knives that would make them perform better, look better, be more comfortable in hand and just be better knives in general.  These are things like a more radiused handle contour, long plunge lines, convexed tips, enlarged finger choils and (not shown) polished internals and washers.  Little things like these go a long way in turning a mediocore knife into something first rate, and they're things I've learned with this model, being my first higher quantity knife.

SN19 incorperates all of the latest changes down to the screw, and really is the most perfect Orion I've made to date.  I spent a little time learning how to do proper plunge lines with a certain NC native knife maker (wink) and the results really shine on this knife.  Likewise I'm really happy with the overall cleanliness of everything on this knife, the grinds, the satin flats, the polished handles, the gold spacers, everything works well together.  Likewise the action on this knife came out increadibly well.  I fit the knife four times until I was happy with it, time well spent.  The payoff is a knife with a glass-like action and absolutly no play in the handles without having to use bearings.

After sharpening, I murdered some old shop manuals and packaged it up, ready to ship out.  If you're interested in this Orion, feel free to send me an email to inquire, WillMoonCustomKnives@gmail.com.

-Will

July 28th Update

Hey All,

I wanted to follow up on my earlier Blog post with a little good news, as of today my girlfriend has been moved back home from the Neuro ICU and apart from some slight nausea and discomfort around the areas of the IV insertion has made a full recovery.  I wanted to thank everyone for their emails and concern, we appreciate it greatly.  In any event, this also means I'm back to work on knives for folks, I'll be finishing up three Orions by the end of the weekend, another Boker Epicenter rescale, some homemade mosaic pin inlays and continueing progress on the framelocks.  Thanks for the support everyone, have a great weekend!

-Will

July 24th Update

Hey All,

I wanted to post a late July progress update.  I've been waiting on tooling to properly proceed with the framelock build, but the first knife's handle is roughly half done.  Once the processes are all worked out, I should be able to mill the knives at a fairly good clip.

With regards to the Orions, I'm nearly done with the run of knives.  I have enough parts for five more knives and then the model will be sold out.  I can definitively say it's not a style of knife (that is to say, the balisong) I will be revisiting in the future.

Service-wise, I've made a point to start doing same-day shipping on all items.  I truly appreciate every person who does business with me, to that end I want to offer the fastest and most accurate service I possibly can.  To all my new, existing and returning customers, thank you so much for your business and for letting me earn your trust and support, it means the world to me.

Lastly I do have some bad news: last night my girlfriend suffered a brain aneurism and is currently being hospitalized.  There's bleeding on the surface of her brain, reason currently unknown.  While I've made a conscious commitment to speed up delivery of custom work, my first priority right now is my girlfriend's wellbeing.  I've already notified those customers who may be affected, it shouldn't add any more than a couple days to the timeframes I've given, but regardless I wanted to make it known.

-Will

Moon Framelock Build Day 4: Prelim Frame Milling

Hey All,

I wanted to post the first few photos of the milling of the first framelock.  I just drilled the lanyard hole for today, unfortunatly the frame pocket mill I have is too short and the spindle of the CNC mill is bottoming out on the framelock pocket so that's as far as I can go until I get new tooling for the job.  So far tho, I think the lanyard hole setup looks good.  Here's some misc. shop photos from the build, enjoy:

Above are all the steps for the milling of the handles.  There are seven setups, the first two are single tool processes but the rest of the setups have around 8 tool changes on average.  This doesn't count the setups for the pocket clips and blades, which are also milled.  On the table you can see some of the titanium billets laid out and ready to go.

Here's one of the billets bolted into a fixture and ready to go into the milling machine.  This particular fixture is a 1.5 inch piece of 6061Al that's meant to hold the titanium frame facing upward for the routing of the pocket for the blade.

Here's a handle billet being routed on the bottom for the blade pocket.  

-Will

New Knife Completion: Moonglow Spyderco Lum

Hey All,

Today I was able to finish up another custom job for a Spyderco Lum Tanto with full Moonglow scales.

For those who don't know or are unfamiliar with Moonglow, it's an awesome acrylic material that glows in the dark.  No, I didn't invent the stuff (although it's a question I get very frequently because of the name coincidence), and there's some confusion as to the difference between my glow in the dark inlay and Moonglow.  Moonglow is an acrylic that comes in sheets, it's sold commercially although its tough to get.  It contains a glow in the dark pigment which is evenly distributed throughout the material.  I also use a mixed glow in the dark epoxy for some of my inlay work, it's a very different beast from Moonglow tho.

In any event, I always wanted to try out Moonglow scales on a few Spyderco models including the Lum, so I carpe diem'ed that sucker and opportunity added some glow in the dark scales.  I also polished up the liners so the glowing scales would reflect and add a little extra brightness to the mix.  The results I couldn't be happier with.

-Will

Quick Mods: Pocket Clips

Hey All,

One quick mod that's requested suprisingly often is the addition or change of position of a pocket clip to a knife.  It's really an integral part of any modern pocket knife- if you intend the knife for EDC, you need a pocket clip.  I know there are guys who get by without, but in my personal opinion, it's mandatory hardware.  If you are looking to add a pocket clip or flip the clip to a different position, I now offer the service for 30$ plus return shipping.  The only requirement for the clip flip is your knife really needs to have steel liners or scales in order for the clip to anchor properly.  I can add a clip to an all G10 handle, but it requires the addition of a steel subscale for an additional cost.  The timeframe for these mods is quick, in most cases I have folk's knives back to them within the week.  If you have any questions about the clip addition or flipping service, feel free to email me.  Thanks!

-Will

Moon Framelock Build Day 3: Tooling

Hey All,

With tooling in for the new framelocks, this week I will be able to start on the milling of the first framelocks.  This design has been in the works for about seven months, so I'm happy to see it finally start to come into being.  I wanted to show off some of the more exotic tools that we'll be using for this job, some folks may find it interesting anyway, and it helps explain why these kinds of knives can be so pricey.

Among the many carbide drills and endmills, there are some micro milling heads in the mix.  The last photo above is one such endmill, which is a .018 milling bit for milling the framelock cutout.  I'm hoping the bit lasts, it's proportionatly taking off very little material from the titanium billet, but I will need to flood coolant and feed like a sloth-extreme.  These kind of bits are astronomically pricey, so I've got to make them last.  I've also got some really awesome twisting taps for the pocket clip mount that should allow me to use the CNC to tap the frames.  This will be a big help, it insures it's done perfectly each time and reduces the chances of breakage.  Now to start milling...

-Will

Moon Orions Featured by BladeHQ

Hey all,

I just wanted to repost a video from BladeHQ that they posted earlier.  As previously mentioned in my Blog, BHQ picked up five of my custom Orions and has them on their website now.  These are exclusive knives with some awesome custom options including the only bowie style Orion to date.  Check out their video here, and of course support BHQ:

-Will

Moon Framelock Build: Day 3

Hey All,

Today marks day three of the Moon Integral Build.  Today was mostly dedicated to making some last minute changes before the rest of my tooling shows up to start milling.  Design-wise, I've decided to go with a 3D milled pocket clip rather than a standard bent pocket clip.  While both clips would have been in house made soecifically for this project, I decided that a premium knife like this should have premium hardware throughout, so the milled pocket clip really seemed like the way to go.  The clip attaches via two torx screws and is also held in place by a pocket milled into the frame for a little extra strength.  The clips can potentially take an inlay, although I'm a little concerned about whether the inlay will stay in the clip if the clip is bent when donning and doffing the knife, so a little testing will be in order to make sure the inlay is durable.  Likewise I also lengthened the clip from the original, which was fairly short as to stay unobtrusive.  So far I'm happy with this design, it'll mean more work for each knife but if it helps me make a truly superior knife, I'm all for it, that afterall is my aim.

-Will

Moon Framelock Build: Day 2

Hey All,

Today is the second day of the Moon Framelock build, and marks the delivery of the titanium billets from our water jet.  These billets are roughly four pounds of titanium, each will yeild a single monolithic handle for the framelocks.  After surfacing, these are now ready to go into the mill and be machined into the handles for the knives.  With any luck, I will have the tooling nessisary to start milling within the week and will start machining the frames.

-Will

Moon Integral Framelock Build, Day 1

Hey All,

Today marks a pretty big step for me, I started milling on my integral framelocks.  These knives are pretty complex as framelocks come, being made of a single piece of titanium for the frame and integrating all the big features folks have come to know and expect out of a premium framelock.  Today was mostly dedicated to milling fixtures for the milling of the titanium handle billets.  Each handle is milled out of a single 4 pound billet of Titanium and needs three major fixture assemblies for the machining: a flat surfacing and bossing fixture, an angled handle taper fixture and a angled lanyard hole drilling fixture.  Bear in mind this is simple prototyping, these knives are no where near ready for production yet and I'm still in the process of learning the skills I need to successfully pull off this design and make it the best framelock I can.  They'll only be released when they're ready and perfected, not a moment before.

The reasons for the seperate fixtures will become aparant as the build progresses, regardless they are a critical part of the milling of the handle.  Billets of titanium should appear via UPS post tomorrow and the handle builds will begin at large.  The first knives should be available for purchase near the end of summer or early fall.

-Will

Addressing NIB Sharpness Issues

Hey All,

So it's been brought to my attention that some of the first couple Orions were shipped with less than perfect edges, edges which folks haven't been happy with for one reason or another.  In an effort to attain maximal quality in my knives, I took the comments and suggestions from these customers regarding my edges to heart and went back to the drawing board on how I edge my knives.  It's true, being a self taught knife maker, I had some basic deficiencies in my skills, so I spent some time learning to sharpen better, practicing my technique over the past several weeks and I believe I'm now to the point where all of the Orions and all future knives leaving Moon Custom Knives will have a satisfactory edge.

But it's not enough to just say "I'm where I want to be".  There are a lot of Orions out there in private hands right now, more than two thirds of the knives are sold.  If you feel you have an Orion with a dissatisfactory edge, please feel free to contact me and I will reedge the knife for free.  I'll even pay your shipping costs.  My number one priority as a knife maker has always been and will always be the satisfaction of my customers.  This is part of my ongoing aim to produce the best quality knife I possibly can, a commitment which I will not break.  I do apologize to those who were dissatisfied with the edge on their knives, all I ask is a chance to correct any and all mistakes and I will do everything in my power to do so in a precise and timely manner.  To all those who have an Orion, thanks for your business, I truly appreciate it!

-Will

New knife completion: Bladerunners Alpha Beast

Hey all,

I wanted to show off some work I did this afternoon for a buddy of mine who sent me his bladerunners Alpha Beast for a tune up and some custom work.  He was experiencing difficulty with blade play and also having trouble with the octagonal profile of the handles on the knife.  When I recieved the knife I immediatly noticed air- that is to say a large gap- between the handles and the blade where the washers weren't thick enough.  Likewise one of the back standoffs, because bladerunners doesn't surface their titanium parts, was slightly too thick.  The combination of these two things was causing a large amount of blade play in the knife, especially prevalent in the bite handle.  The good news is mechanically, this is an extremely easy fix- I surfaced the rear standoff to the propper height and doubled the washer thickness on both handles, fully eliminating all blade/handle play in the knife.

Aesthetically, he wanted me to reduce the size of the upper swedge to turn the knife into a bowie style blade and round/contour the handles of the knife so it felt similar to his very familiar Benchmade 42.  Using low speed and a ceramic Blaze belt as not to ruin the temper of the blade, I took off the upper swedge and then finished the reground portion to 300 grit to match the preexisting spine grinds.  I also reprofiled the handles using 36 grit Blaze belts and progressivly worked my way up to 800 grit, then switched to a scotchbrite belt loaded with green polishing compound to give the handles a nice grey titanium semi-gloss.  I finished the knife off by surfacing the insides of the handles and satin finishing/anodizing the standoffs and latch blue for some contrast.  

The results speak for themselves.

-Will

On Begg style Internal Pins

Hey all,

One frequently asked question I get about my butterfly knives, the Orions, is why did I choose internal pins over tried and true Zen pins or Tang pins?  It's a good question, only one other knife maker uses internal pins in a Balisong, a very awesome and well respected knife maker named Todd Begg.  I have to confess, when I first designed the Orions I didn't know Todd had used anything similar, being unfamiliar with Todd's work at the time, but was happy to find out he had been using them with excellent success for several years.  I was able to attain permission to use them from Todd, and for that I'm extremely greatful, he is an awesome individual with boundless design and fabrication talent and I'm truly honored to use his system of internal pins in my knives.  

But why use Begg/Internal pins at all?  What benefit do they really give the user?  Well, for starters, they obviously look cleaner than traditional pin arrangements.  Likewise they can never fall out, unlike tang pins.  Zen pins also require a specific tang and blade geometry in order to work, so the Orion design would obviously look quite different if I were limited to Zen pins.  I've also found through my testing that Begg pin styled knives are consistantly capable of taking great stresses on the blade, definitly a desirable property in a hard use balisong.  There's nothing technically wrong with either of the traditional pin arrangements, but Todd's system allowed me more artistic freedom with my design and a few functional differences that make the knife a little easier to maintain and cleaner looking.  

Would I recomend a knife maker use a Begg pin arrangement system?  With his permission, I think so, the milling work for the blade is much more difficult and you will need to have extremely tight tolerances for the system to work, but overall I've been extremely happy with the system.  If you want to use a similar internal pin system, please contact Todd before doing so.

-Will

BladeHQ Now Carrying Orions

Hey all,

I wanted to let you know that BladeHQ is now carrying a small selection of my Orion butterfly knives. BladeHQ is an awesome supporter of Moon Custom Knives, and has five Orions in stock and ready to ship.  These knives feature Blade HQ exclusive features and options like polished jeweling, unique handle profiles for a better grip and unique blade grinds.  Of course they all still feature my insanly strong construction and my lifetime transferable warranty.  These knives can take a beating and will outlast a Kalashnikov, plus BladeHQ is one of the best retailers in the business, with awesome service and community support.  Pick one up today!

-Will

Moon Orions at Blade HQ

July 2012 Update

Hey all,

I recently decided to temporarily suspend production at Moon Custom Knives in order to take some time off to perfect and hone some of my skills as a knifemaker.  I travel often for non-knife related activities, as such I will be seeking knowledge and information from many well established makers around the country to make the best of my time, hopefully learning a little more about knife making while I'm at it.  Until now I have been entirly self taught, so this is a huge step for me.  I'm not ending my stint as a knife maker, but I won't be producing knives for sale until I feel comfortable I can offer a truly superior product, one capable of going neck and neck with the best names in the business.  The end game goal for me is to produce the very best knife I can, and to that end I'm taking my time with product and skill development to make sure my knives are the maximal apex of quality.

Likewise part of the decision to suspend production comes on the back of an almost month long barrage of online harassment from several members of the knife community, which has damaged not only my business, but more importantly my relationship with my girlfriend who I love very much.  I made the decision to suspend production in order to minimize external stressors for the time being and hopefully spend a little more time with the people I love.

With regards to warranty and repair work, bear in mind this is not a total termination of services.  I will still be honoring my lifetime transferable warranty that comes with all of my knives.  Even if you get one of my knives on the secondary market, if you are dissatisfied please contact me and I will take care of you, just like any good knife maker should.  I try very hard to make sure every one of my customers and every owner of my knives is happy with their cutlery.

With that said, I want to say that I know how hard money is to come by these days, it's a tough economy and it's tough to justify spending money on knives.  I have to extend a huge "Thank You" to every one of my customers, people who support me and friends in the community.  I wouldn't be doing what I do without you all, and I truly appreciate it.

-Will

Customized Lime/Anti Scratch Boker Plus Epicenter

I recently found a couple of knives from before my move in my toolbox, and decided to do a little work on them.  These were knives that had some quality issues I could not correct on my own before due to a general lack of knowledge, but being now much more experienced in knife making, I could sort out the issues readily.

The Boker Plus Epicenter designed by Todd Rexford is known for having some initial quality concerns.  I don't personally know if more recent production knives have sorted out these problems, but the samples I was sent when I initially recieved the knives had problematic scale alignment, some issues with the lockup and a few scratches in the satin finish.  Besides that, and more problematically, they also both had extremely weak detents.

I fixed these issues by adding a handmade G10 scale, which also lightened the knife considerably, redrilling the detent hole in the blade to help with the weak retension and adding some titanium putty to the blade tang, just enough to clear up the lockup issue and then reground the lockbar face to be a little less shallow.  I used this titanium putty trick a lot in my past life as a roboticist in repairing cracked or damaged parts.  When dry, Ti putty is just like having solid welded titanium, and wears much in the same way.  I then had the blade tang and lockbar carbidized to help the materials wear a bit better, so the knife is rock solid now.

Additionally I textured the entire frame in my anti-scratch finish and anodized the innards blue.  This is a polished Ti finish thats totally impervious to scratching and scuffing, I think it also feels great in the hand and provides a little more grip than the standard media blast.

Experimentation with Regrinding

Regrinding, that is the practice of modifying existing factory or maker grinds into a more subtable cutting geometry for a given task, is more popular now than ever before.  Some excellent custom knife makers like Tom Krein and Brad Southard have made a name for themselves in offering this service, transforming rather lackluster grinds into some wicked edges.  This past week I started experimenting with regrinding myself, and while it's a service I will not be offering due to extreme liability, I was very happy with the results.

The donor knife in this case was a old Benchmade 755 MPR I found while cleaning out my tool-bin.  Some parts for the knife had been lost in my recent move, but Benchmade was kind enough to send out the replacements for the missing hardware.  My biggest issue with my old MPR was the flat grinding geometry wasn't optimal for such a small knife, and it wasn't slicing well as a utility cutter.  I reground the knife to a deep hollow grind, and the result completely transformed this piece.  I also did some other custom work on the 755 while I had it apart, so it now sports a maroon frame and anti-scratch Ti frame in addition to the hollow ground blade.  Still have to make the pocket clip, but so far I'm a very happy camper.