Question about designing your knife

[penvisser]

I was wondering of anyone here on BCUK uses a CAD programm for designing his/her knives.

I make a lot of drawings before I am satsfied with the result. I also color the drawings like the color of the materials I am using for a knife. In these days it seems more likely to me that a computer is added for designing knives or am I wrong? :yikes:

Penvisser.

 

[nickg]

I have done it. Using Bentley Microstation. But the grace of a knife is IMHO all in the subtle & flowing gradual curves which are hard (not impossible) to find in cad. I do a lot of work in photoshop working out handle shapes & finishes.
Got to say here that the finished article seldom looks much like the final design though.

Cheers
Nick

 

[Longstrider]

As I'm just getting into blade making I find that I'm filling spare minutes at work with a pencil and paper sketching designs, rubbing bits of them out and re-drawing them etc etc until I like the design I see. I'd have absolutely no idea as to how to do this on the PC, but why bother anyway? The boss can afford a few extra sheets of photocopier paper...

 

[C_Claycomb]

Yes and no. I don't design knives on CAD, but I have transfered them to CAD for clarity, dimensional accuracy, and transferability. It is possible in some CAD programs to plot points upon a profile at a regular spacing, then take those points and tabulate them in Excel.

This tablulated data can be transmitted with a 100% certainty that if it is plotted out somewhere else the profile will be just as you drew it. If you send CAD files you depend on the person having the right program, if you send tiff files you depend on them printing them on the right size paper (not everyone uses A4), and if you ever have them photocopied you are more than likely to get some distortion.

In industry it is very different. I know that Spyderco do not work with 2D flat drawings, but do fully dimensioned 3D models that can then be used for rapid prototyping or for driving CNC mills to precisely form complex handle shapes. They are far from the only company doing this.