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This is a pair of folding pocket knives (numbers 6 and 7) that I CNC machined in ~2003 as a class project. My father and I each carried one as our daily carry knives for several years until we started to get scared about the possibility of losing them.
This is how I fixtured the blade for machining. I cut from both sides and ended up with a thin web suspending the edge of the blade.
These are the aluminum handle pieces as they came off of the Haas Mini-Mill. As you can see from the wrinkling in the photo, the web turned out perfectly. I was able to tear the parts out without tools. Note also the direction of the tool paths; it took me forever to get them all going the directions that I wanted.
Here are the finished pieces for one knife. The handles are hard-anodized and the three steel parts have been appropriately heat treated for their respective functions.
One fully assembled knife and one laid open without fasteners to show how the locking mechanism functions.
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