Swivel Knife Preferences

[pete]

what intrigues me the most is the shape of the yoke. I don't know if you can improve on the 100's of knives out there, but the yoke LOOKS like it would be very comfortable !!!

You might have a market on the yoke if it fits the shaft of the most common and popular knives!!!I'll be glad to try one and send it back with a critique. I have leatherwrangler and chuck smith knives.

I'm serious about the offer. I would buy one if it feels as comfortable as it looks.

pete

Edited November 16, 2012 by pete

[shtoink]

what intrigues me the most is the shape of the yoke. I don't know if you can improve on the 100's of knives out there, but the yoke LOOKS like it would be very comfortable !!!

You might have a market on the yoke if it fits the shaft of the most common and popular knives!!!I'll be glad to try one and send it back with a critique. I have leatherwrangler and chuck smith knives.

I'm serious about the offer. I would buy one if it feels as comfortable as it looks.

pete

I'd have to find a way to make my yoke fit the craftool standard knife. Not impossible, but a different direction than I am going at the moment.

The yokes I made are very comfortable. The design started out as an attempt to find an ergonomic for my hand and evolved from there. The other factor was that the material I was working with started out as a cylinder and I was just working with what I hand on hand. As it stands, making the yoke still remains the most time consuming part of making these knives. I haven't found a way to machine them that doesn't require equipment I already have. I could probably do it in multiple steps with a CNC mill, but that is something I don't have at this point.

They do feel different than the standard shapes used on other knives, but this whole endeavor, yokes included, has been an effort to find a solution for a problem that is not addressed by any other knives on the market. Hand fatigue.

[TwinOaks]

I lost track of this thread, otherwise I would have chimed in sooner.

I spoke with Shtoink at length about the design process long before he started this thread and he sent me the first prototype (P1). I've done some test carving with it, but I don't claim to be a master carver. Here is the report I sent:

"Before I started the test, I sharpened and stropped the blades I would use. Blade 1 is a standard 1/2" square tip, blade 2 is a 1/4" angle. I used the Woody, and a standard swivel knife side by side, and swapped blades so that the blade wasn't a variable. Pattern is Tandy's Celtic Cross.....first time I've ever carved it. The carving session was straight through with no break except for the transition between knives and the blade swap. Leather is S. American from Springfield, and cased with tap water - no conditioners.

Results of the swivel knife 'test drive':

Obviously the Woody has a smoother action. I've already mentioned that aspect, and that was why I sharpened/stropped both blades.

Temperature in the house is high 60's because it got chilly last night and we've been pulling 'night air' in to keep the house cool.

There is a noticeable temp. difference to my hand between the two knives. Though the Woody never felt 'warm' (higher than ambient), it never felt cold. If I'd kept it in my hand instead of swapping, it may have felt warmer due to body temp. transfer to the wood.

The tandy knife felt cold every time I picked it up, and that definitely had an effect on comfort.

Knurling on the tandy knife is tactile, but not overly aggressive. However, it did effect how I had to move my fingers to adjust position. Woody is grippy, but not like a rough texture.

Regardless of which blade was in the tandy knife, I was stopping and flexing fingers as I moved from section to section. With the Woody, I just moved the leather, or twisted the knife and kept going. About halfway through, when I'd determined which blade was cutting better, I just put it in the Woody and finished the whole carving with it....no stopping...then went back and connected some of the cuts I'd stopped short.

Your expectations of the improved ergonomics of the wood barrel are right on spot.

Total carving time is about 45 minutes, with the majority of the cuts made with the Woody.

**Of particular note:**

When I transferred the pattern to the leather (make a copy, then trace the lines on the copy while overlaid on the leather) I WAS getting some minor cramping. The pen I used has a steel barrel and was at ambient temp. - same as the tandy knife. The wood barrel was comfortable for pretty constant use."

I'm an electrician, and work with my hands on a daily basis indoor and outdoor, warm or cold. Because of this and some injuries to my hands (voltage burns) I have arthritis already starting in a few joints/knuckles. If you have the beginnings of Arthur, you know how cold things effect your hands. With this knife, I was able to carve nearly nonstop for 2-3 times as long with far less fatigue.

Also important to note is that the knife is smooth enough to feel the problems I had with my blades....which I didn't know about because they were in standard knives. The standard knives just didn't transmit the feel of the cut the same way.

Regarding the yoke: I was a bit skeptical at first because it is so different from the standard yoke. I find it to be MORE comfortable than the standard yoke. The wood (as mentioned above) never feels 'cold', and even though it is thinner, it is rounded in two axis. That allows me to hang my finger in the yoke in a variety of positions without ever having an edge....very much like a saddle yoke. It is shallower but wider, than the saddle yokes like on the sk-3 knives.

Hm...what more to say about it? It feels good in the hand. I also have a BK knife, and it's very nice....but this design feels better, and hence works better.

[tnawrot2]

I have big fingers, and they won't fit in a lot of yokes. I am interested in your yoke, is it padded?

[TwinOaks]

It is not padded.

[shtoink]

I have big fingers, and they won't fit in a lot of yokes. I am interested in your yoke, is it padded?

The good news, I based it off of my hands and I have big hands.

That was one of the issues with the very first functioning prototype, it was big and would have been a very uncomfortable stretch for anyone with smaller hand. The barrel was close to 3" long, but I hadn't noticed that it was big until I had someone with smaller hands attempt to use it. It was kind of like watching a little kid attempt to ride a 10 speed. "Make shorter barrel" immediately went to the top of my list of revisions that needed to be addressed.

More good news, my yoke design is flexible enough to accommodate small hands with the very same yoke. I had a few women try out one of my knives and they had no issues with controlling or gripping the knife. So, as long as the yoke is appropriately sized, there shouldn't be any issues.

On a side note: One of my most dreaded fears is having everything exactly how I want it and then screwing it up later after discovering that part of my process needs to be modified.

A good example of this happened just recently. I worked very hard at perfecting the finish on the yoke shaft and keeping with looking nice while putting some threads on the end that connects to the yoke. I managed to mar it up pretty good when attaching the yoke to the yoke shaft. I was able to clean it up some, but the damage was done and I clearly needed to revise my process once more.

The previous revision to my process happened after doing something very similar. I had a nice and polish finish on the yoke shaft and marred up the finish getting threads on the yoke shaft.

Talk about frustration... I had some very choice words to say at the moment and I almost threw it across the room after that. That's all part of the designing and testing, though. Sometimes getting from step 1 to step two requires you to invent a whole subset of steps. Clearly, it isn't always smooth sailing...

When I get the chance, I'll post a few more pictures of the current one being constructed. I used the Snakewood barrel in the photos above, just to give you a hint at what it'll look like.

[shtoink]

I got a couple images taken with my cell phone after finishing up a recent test knife. As I mentioned in the previous post, this one is Snakewood.

As a reminder, these are cell phone pictures and not exactly the best quality, but it should give you a decent idea of how things have gone. As usual, these are clickable thumbnails that will open the full sized image.

[shtoink]

[Furiku]

Hello. This is my first post and I am new to leather crafting. I am familiar with swivel knives and understand their working but what I want to do in my work is to get a smaller, thinner, detailed cut in some of my smaller designs. To do this I began using an Exacto knife. My question is, "Could a swivel knife be fitted with a much smaller blade similar to the blade of an exacto knife?"

I realize that my inexperience may to blame for going to this type of cutting tool. The areas I am trying to work in are so small, a regular swivel just cuts too big.

Thank you for your time,

tom

[chancey77]

How did I miss this thread! Dude this is awesome!

My biggest problem and pet peeve is that dinky little set screw that rusts or strips out because of rust!

Man your wood shafts are cool!

Also heavy bottoms and fat design!

Edited January 15, 2013 by chancey77