Here's the overview of the resulting design, a Fishtail Kris Picklock.
Blade open, exterior view.
Blade closed, exterior view.
Blade open showing internal parts. When Duke builds one he uses a heavy 5/32" pivot and 3/32" through pins. Scale pins are 1/16". Typically we use 1/16" stainless liners to preclude them deforming if there is scale warpage. This design includes all our recent improvements, such as a lock pin of full blade thickness (5/32") and carved out of the blade rather than inserted. The kicker is attached with a single pin so that it can be easily replaced. I've started to make the kicker shorter in length so that it doesn't overhang the sear and to eliminate that bit of extra wear on the sear. The only real reason I can come up with for the Italians doing it the other way is to leave the ricasso clear for a logo. I went for function over advertising.
I shoot for parking the point of the blade about 1/8" down into the bladewell so that it won't peek even after a bit of wear. I provide room for it to overtravel 1/16" past the sear so that you get positive engagement before you press the kicker against the back spring. This design is actually a bit on the tight side and I will need to revisit before and if we ever decide to build one. The small ball on the end of the kicker helps keep it from resting against and dulling the sharp edge of the blade (yeah, Kris's are notoriously dull anyway!).
OK, have you spotted what's odd about this knife? Guess before you scroll down any further.
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
Did you guess correctly? Yep, that is a LONNNNNNNGGGGG knife. It's about 23" overall, 10-3/4" blade and nominally 3/4" wide. Most of the big display knives are 3-4" wide and have lots of straight lines instead of the elegant curves of a stiletto. This one is barely over 1" wide and should be lively due to a really heavy kicker.
I then came back and redrew this as a normal 13". This illustration if printed at 100% should produce a correctly sized knife fitting on a standard sheet of printer paper. It's not merely a matter of scaling it down. Each and every component has to be reevaluated and redrawn to make a functional design. The 11" blade supports six humps, the 6" blade only five.
Open external view:
Closed external view:
Open view showing internal parts:
This is the closed view showing internal parts. This knife has all the same features and approaches as the big monster, just adjused for shorter and a bit slimmer. This one actually came out a bit better, as I anticipated the same issues and took steps to stop them from "GO".
As always, your questions, comments and criticisms are appreciated.
