Consolidation
(Before We Continue...)

Let's take a little minute to stop and breathe.

I know you probably want to continue on and "get to the knife" ...but, for my own sanity, I'd like to just quickly go over what we've covered so far and where we are going next (it may have only taken you 30 minutes to read this far ...but it's taken me over two weeks of writing - seriously).

Here's what we've covered so far:

-- We started with defining the "the world's best knife" (or at least I gave you my criteria for making it)

-- We then discussed what will be made in-house and what will be bought in (as well as identifying how the various parts will be made)

-- Finally we showed the overall design of the knife and went into a bit of detail on the aesthetics

And that's pretty much it (boiled down to just three bullet points!).

What Next?

Let's cover the "bigger picture" of what is coming up (although it's not totally set in stone because this is a journey we're both on and I'm only a little ahead of you).

Wait, before we get to that...

On the "a little ahead of you" point above, I'm writing down this journey sort of in real-time as I work on the knife. For example, right now I'm starting to work on the CNC fixturing - this is the method in which the various metal "blank" parts of the knife are held so we can CNC machine them.

There is a little time lag between what is happening right now and what I'm writing about. I don't just want to try and write everything down at the end ...because that's not taking you on the journey (that's just telling you what happened). But, also, writing is hard -- not as hard as making the world's best knife though -- and I need a little "buffer" to form my thoughts and get them written down as progress is made on the knife.

The Bigger Picture

Here's what we still have coming up (assuming progress on the knife goes somewhat well):
  • Further deep diving into the details of the knife (looking at the internals and discussing EVERYTHING)
  • Making the CNC fixturing (this will be where you actually start seeing something REAL ...and not just screenshots)
  • Show the CAD/CAM process (this is where I will show the 3D models of the various knife parts on the CAD/CAM software and how we it to program the CNC machine to actually machine the parts)
  • Machining each of the knife parts on the CNC machine (Blade, Scales, Pocket-Clip, Lockbar-insert, pivot, bearing cages, etc.)
  • Surface finishing of the various machined parts, assembly and initial testing
  • Tweaking and adjusting the design (this will likely be an iterative process where we have to make a change then test, make another change then test, and so on)

Still A Long Way To Go

As the above list of bullet-points show...

We still have quite a journey ahead of us. If you're into knives, but not into details and all the behind-the-scenes stuff, then this is probably a good point to step off the bus.

We are going to start going properly deep now into the process of designing and making of the world's best knife.
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