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A while back I posted a piece of the Lady Wife's work, a knitted, very brightly colored, shawl. This is the same pattern, but done in black and grey. We think it looks like damascus. Geoff and Marianne

It's not knife related, but I've been waiting for a couple of months for this kit to arrive I've got the barrel and butt-plate inletting finished. It was 99.5% done as it came. An hour with some Prussian blue and a small chisel, and I had the parts fitting with no gaps. It's going to be a pretty stock

Finished my competition cutter for the hammer-in. It's butt-ugly, but the point is functionalism, not beauty. The fit and finish is ghastly, but it had to be done this weekend. 1.5 hours forging and normalizing, 2.5 hours grinding, 3 hours for HT, 1 hour adding guard and handle scales, 3 hours putting the edge on it. All done by eye, no measurements taken except for a length check while forging to make sure it was under 15 inches. 5160 forged from 1" round, bronze guard, walnut scales with steel pins, 400 grit machine finish flats, 120 grit machine finished spine, 200 grit machine finished grip, edge polished to the point that 15 micron film leaves visible scratches that are only removed via stropping with white diamond compound on leather. It's one of those blades that's so sharp the hair pops out of its way before it even touches it, paper shreds cleanly with no tears, and leather parts with zero effort. If I did the HT properly it should do okay provided I do my part. I have no delusions of winning, but as long as it cuts and doesn't chip I'll be happy. I really don't like sculpted handles for cutting. They look great, but I find them limiting. This beast has a half-octagon section with rounded bottom and a slight indent for the little finger just ahead of the bird's-head end. I find this indexes very well. You always know exactly where the edge is, and you can shift your grip in midswing. You may notice in comparing it to the rough-forged pic from two weeks ago that it lost the coffin-handle profile in the grip. The practical reason is that a swelled coffin end like that makes for a hot spot at the heel of your hand during heavy chopping. The embarrassing but true reason is because I forgot it was full tang and not a frame handle, and the guard wouldn't fit over the end. If I ever get hold of more 9260 I might make a pretty one.

Finally finished up the first batch of Sgians for a high-end craft shop opening in Edinburgh in a couple of weeks. They're getting collected tomorrow, so just in under the wire. 3 1/2" blades of clay hardened 1095, about 7 1/4" o/a. Bog oak and antler handles with copper and mosaic pins. Back seam sheaths covered in lambskin leather. let me know what you think.

I have learned that for me, it's best to set a hard cutoff date when prepping for a show. If I don't, then I'm rushing to get one more done, and it's neve my best work. These just slid in under the wire. I've been seeing folks making pocket stone/fiddler/worry stones out of all kinds of materials, micarta and G10 and other stuff. This one is bone and ironwood and a mosaic pin, because I like natural materials best. I think I'm going to more of these, they're quick and I have lots of small scraps of good stuff. It's quite satisfying to do, and I'll have to make one for me, now that this one is done. The boot knife blade is made from an experimental damascus billet I did for a friend. It's 80crv2 and 15n20. There isn't much contrast, it's more like hada than damascus. Handle is ironwood and bone (familiar somehow) with a mosaic accent. The blade is a single side grind and the bone side of the handle is flat to fit against the person. A little different. Geoff

A little time expensive though

This set away in the morning. I am increasingly favouring the K-tip design chef knife with its depth of blade further out toward the tip. An 8 inch K-tip, a 5 inch general purpose and a His n Her steak knife set in the travel case all in cryo quenched NitroV with ss pins in the Camel bone handles.

Just finished up a neat little commission. A small but stout english style baselard, 30cm blade which is a whopping 7,2mm thick at the base and tapers down to 3mm 2cm from the tip. The grip was deeply fullered to bring the balance point about 2cm in front of the grip. And oh this was an incredibly messy glue up with all those pins and six scales The sheath is double layered leather and got a chape from Tod cutler. I still am amazingly bad at estimating how much leather stretches and shrinks so the outer layer end up a bit roomy but with some burnishing and massaging I gathered it around the sticthing to the point it almost looks intentional scribing in some vines Cut and trying out my new gas powered soldering pen to open up the cuts And then a whole bunch of tooling and now I want to make a really big one if course

Found something for ITH this weekend.

Here's how I currently grind scissors. It's based on my understanding of how scissors are supposed to work and the tools available to me in my shop. I do most of my grinding freehand on a 2x72 using both platen and contact wheels. I grind the inside faces flat on the platen. Then I add a hollow grind to those faces with an 8" contact wheel. I use the same wheel to grind the primary and secondary bevels on the outside face. After grinding, I sharpen the edge using diamond stones. The stones are pretty demanding when it comes to flat and straight. I don't grind much before the heat treat. I do grind the blade ends even, the inside faces flat, and I start the primary bevel. I leave the profile grinding for later, because the hollow grind gets difficult if the tips are pointed. I use an electric oven to normalize, austenize, and temper the 1075. I quench in Parks 50. I get very little warpage. After heat treat, all grinding is done to 320 grit, which seems to be fine enough for the rust blue finish I use. I start on the platen to get the inside faces flat. I also grind the cutting edge straight. More on why the edge needs to be straight later. Switching to the 8" wheel, I grind the primary bevel on the outside face. This bevel is mostly for weight reduction and cosmetics. I aim for a thickness under 1/16" at the edge. The hollow on the inside provides clearance for the cutting edges. The hollow extends from the tip to the pivot hole. What remains of the flat face is referred to as the ride line - where the blades contact each other running the length of the cutting edge and wrapping around the pivot hole. This hollow grind is why my scissors have straight edges. My blades have straight edges because I don't know how to grind a curved hollow with the tools in my shop. This is the tooling I designed to help me improve the secondary bevel grind. I borrowed the idea of the guide rod from the sharpening system I use. It is set to grind 35* off 90. Said another way, it's a 55* included angle on the blade. Finally the profile is done. The next steps are to sharpen the edge, make the screw, blue everything, and do the final assembly.

I'm not really sure what to call these things, I've seen some other makers doing them, mostly in micarta and other synthetics, but I like natural materials, so I made a mix. Micarta Some sort of G10/fiberglass stuff, In person it's green curly maple, cut offs from a project for a Ukrainian friend from before the invasion Walrus and bark ironwood, wonderful texture Walrus and bloodwood, to hold or hang This came in a bag of ivory scraps, but I think it micarta or Bakelite. It's got a very fine texture of stacked "V" lines These will all be on the table in Salt Lake priced between $20 and $100 Geoff

Spent the morning with a can of Ballistol dusting stuff for Show and Tell. Now I'm off to the shop to pack tools and such.

I came out of retirement to take a job and save the economy. (yeah….sure!) So I’ve been traveling too much but take it while you can. right? I managed to finish some on and along, just to keep the addiction active. However all are on the fly with little time for extensive planning, so I just wanted to post a few…….. I’ll be at Bowie next weekend and looking forward to meeting everyone, as I am really looking forward to this hammer-in.

Well, here's the guard.. Not quite finished yet, but almost.. at 73 hours on this guard, I suppose 75% finished: The guard is forged out of a piece of railroad plate (the one between the railroad and the wood), engraved and inlaid with 24k gold, and some copper. Two diamonds, or rubies will be placed on the holes in the middle of the flowers, but I've yet to decide what will look best. I am starting work on the other side (handle side) today I think.

Here's the rest of the hot work on these scissors. At this point the shanks and bows can take many different shapes. I've been designing shapes that are usable as-forged, because I don't like the grinding and polishing that's required on the inside surfaces of the bows. This design uses a very long taper, mostly round, that gets wrapped around a mandrel to form the bows, like this post. I use drawing dies on a power hammer as much as I can, but these small pieces go wonky easily, so I spend plenty of time on the anvil. When I'm rounding everything, I have to remind myself it's what I do instead of grinding. Pivot holes are next. I use a laser to help align the blades to the centerline. I drill one side, then transfer punch to drill the second. One hole is tapped, one is reamed. You can see that the blades are different lengths. That's because I forge them to thickness, not length. I align the shoulders of the shanks, not the ends of the blades, before I drill. The shanks are formed. Everything needs a tool. This is the fixture for shaping the bows. The oval mandrel is adjustable left and right. The mandrel is replaceable with a different shape or size. For this design the center of the mandrel is offset 3/4" from the centerline. I use an o/a torch to do the wrap. The laser helps me keep track of the centerline in space. This pair has asymmetric bows. The thumb bow is moved 1/4" closer to the pivot to better match the anatomy of the hand. These are ready for a pickle before grinding.

What type of steel, how did you quench, and how did you temper? I can't say that I've never taken a shot at a piece of 2x4 with a blade I'm working on... ...it just sort of happens.

Update: Was at the venue this morning moving equipment, and got a couple of pics. Here's the outdoor portion in front of the main pavilion, taken from the parking area. The demo tent will be right in front of the building with the demonstrator's spot to the left by the tree at the corner of the building. For the indoor demos (engraving, show-and-tell, Bowie lecture) here's inside the main pavilion: And the view off the back porch of said pavilion: Robin says not to get too excited, a family of otters moved in last year and ate all the fish. Oh, and we've added another great demonstrator Saturday: None other than Jason Knight, ABS Mastersmith and sometimes judge on a little-known TV show called Forged in Fire, or something like that...

I did have a couple more pics, so here y’all go…

Setting up almost done...

This is kinda' a no wrong answers situation. Generally a blade between 3" and 4", single edged, spear point or clip point, but much slimmer and pointier than Americans tend to make them Flat handle no more than 1/2" thick, preferably thinner, Basically as slim and sleek as possible. Here's an excerpt from an email I wrote to a customer a few weeks back: 'the idea of what constitutes a 'traditional' sgian dubh is a bit complicated. Prior to the 18th century it was just a small, plain knife. In the first half of the 18th C. These started to get decorated with carving in a similar style to dirk handles, but after the '45 any such distinctively 'Highland' forms were banned, outside of the British regiments, which is when the regimental sgians developed - straight, flat handles suitable for wearing in the Kilt Hose, usually with carving, plain ferrule at the blade end and closed ferrule for the top. After the prohibition was lifted, the civilian sgian developed from this regimental form, with the top ferrule being set with a stone, which became more elaborate over time, with larger stones, claw and cage settings etc, and more elaborate handle shapes, and carving styles that diverged widely from the traditional Highland dirk carvings. The thing is, these developments occurred in the context of a Victorian British culture which was completely alien and indeed openly hostile to the Highland/Gaidhlig culture that the sgian dubh came from. Being born and raised in the West Highlands, I tend to try and take my design cues from the original Highlland traditional forms as much as possible, rather than the later forms which developed in Edinburgh, Sheffield and Birmingham, outside of that cultural context. The thing is, a lot of this is fairly subjective - there was no continuing tradition of Highland sgian dubhs out-with the broader British context - so I just try to make things that feel authentic to me and my understanding of the culture I was raised in, while steering away from things that feel like Tartanism or pastiche.' Basically, form follows function, so early sgians, the function was to be just a small edc, usually with straight or coffin shaped handles, and spear point, or more often clip point blades. Handles were wood, horn, antler, even dried kelp in the islands and costal areas. For later sgians, the function became decorative, and being able to be worn in the sock. Flat, slim, light, and more and more decorative.

I admit this is an "over the weekend", but I finally got another knife done! The customer liked that last one I posted so much he wanted his own. I also got the chance to wander outdoors for the first time in a long time! this is my second year hunting and I still really love the early morning light in the PNW trees.

Got a decent start on a small nakiri for my wife yesterday… 5-3/4” 1075

I think a good way to go about it is to search them in museum archives online. They'll usually have some information on time period and size etc, could be helpful in deciding what you do and don't like. I find once you've decided what sort you want to make its a lot easier to search out pieces from that period or in that particular style. Here's one I made a while back after researching how the ferrule and sheath worked together. It's finicky but really satisfying to put together.

Sure, I can do the axe, as long as I get to use a coal forge. I have the steel in stock and will bring it.

You forget Jake is actually part Elvish with a strong Japanese background to go along with his native Highlands-and-Islands thing. Seriously nice stuff, Jake, I hope the venture treats you well. Those little Kwaiken-flavored ones are pretty nifty. I bet they sell first, at least to the younger set. Maybe call them sgian-to?

It is! Absolutely gorgeous property. I also realize we haven't really talked about what to expect if you've never been to this type of event. Anything you've made is fine to bring for show-and-tell, or nothing, if you don't feel like showing and telling. If we keep the vibe true to the original Bowie's, it'll be a laid-back bunch of folks watching laid-back demonstrations, with the occasional side conversation off in the distance. There's plenty of space to spread out. If you want to play in the fire, there will be three or four open forges across the field from the demo area. Some will be used for green coal classes, but when those aren't going they're there for folks to play in. So bring tongs, hammers, whatever. We will have a tool vendor on-site, so if you need tongs, hammers, whatever, you can buy them. The AACB demo trailer we were planning on having, which has four complete forge stations with tools, is not coming due to a seized axle bearing. So public tooling is not going to happen. If you want to do tailgate sales, we'll have an area of the parking lot for you. Just tell the parking attendant (who may be me from time to time) and we'll get you where you need to be. There will be a few grinders. The guy who's selling them will have one available to play with, the others are personal property and not to be messed with without owner permission. My HT oven will be there, but that's for Curtis Haaland's demo only and is not for general consumption. We'll all have nametags. The general public who wander in will not, unless they decide to see what's up with us and come register. Casual observers will be able to go watch the free forges, since there will be more hammering over there, as opposed to grinders and lectures. Except for the forging demos, of course! There will be a limited number (around 50) of metal folding chairs on location. If you have a favorite camp chair, bring it. Otherwise, don't block the driveway, park where you're told, buy lots of food from the Lynches' Kitchen, and have fun! This is about camaraderie, old friends and new, and learning a few tips and tricks along the way. Oh, and don't feed the buffalo tarps or plastic bags, no matter how much they beg for them. There will be hay and such to feed them if you want. They're a bunch of big mooches. So are the peafowl, you've been warned!

Where to begin........ In general, all of the knives look like the blades were planned and the handles just happened. The handle design needs more thought and more careful execution than the blade does, because the handle defines how well the user can manipulate the tool. About 6 years ago, a newer maker asked for some guidance on what to make to learn different aspects of this craft. I put up a post with three different projects for beginners to try and copy the techniques in one form or another. That post lasted 3 years and several makers joined in the challenges. With the amount of new makers joining the forum, I'm bumping that thread. Have a look at it.

Hello Everyone, I wanted to quickly share a free tool that I programmed for calculating feed materials for wootz/crucible steel. This calculator makes it extremely easy to play around with different ingredients in your melts and get to your final recipe faster. The calculator does require an email and password, nothing too serious but this is only so you can easily save and track your feed materials and melts. First there is an explanation of all the functions and how to use the calculator. Next is all of your saved recipes. Here is a screenshot of my current recipes. After that will be all of your feed materials which can be added to the exact specifications of your material. Then comes the fun part.... The calculator section. In this section there is a drop down for easily adding any of your feed materials that you added to the section above. The target carbon percentage is used to automatically calculate how much of your carbon source you should add. When you click calculate, it will auto-increment the carbon source weight by .01 grams until your desired total carbon percentage is reached. Finally, once you hit calculate, the expected results of the ingot will be printed out along with the amount of your carbon source material that you will need to add to hit your target carbon percentage. Here is the link to the calculator https://www.wootzsmithforum.com/wootz-calculator/ , Enjoy!!

First I fuller vertically to divide the blade from the shank. The tooling is mounted in a treadle hammer. The steel is 1018 CRS, 516" X 5/8". Next I weld the cutting edge - 1075, 5/32" x 5/16". It took me a while to get used to putting the cutting edge on top like this. It looks wrong if you're thinking knives. The weld is blended in and forged back to the original dimensions. This is a combination of hand forging and power hammer. The shank is drawn out square. The horizontal fuller is the tricky one. It provides a thickness target for subsequent forging and grinding. It also provides some clearance in the pivot area. I have to eyeball its location relative to the first fuller. This is on the treadle hammer again. I have to take it slowly, because the little humps sticking out the sides of the bar get real big if I don't correct it often. Next I draw the blades out to uniform thickness. This is done on the flat dies of a power hammer, taking little bites at a time so the blade grows in length but not much in width. There's plenty of hand forging to keep the cutting edge straight. As I approach the final thickness, I focus on flat and straight. It makes for easier grinding. The last forging will be to draw out the shanks and bows.

Looks like the weather I ordered will be there for us! Crisp early fall temps, lows in the 40s, highs in the 60s, no rain. Bring a jacket, in other words.

That's what I use on my board. I even planed one edge of the board true flat, but that's not necessary. I actually have two sanding boards. One is an oak 2x2 about 18 inches long with a divot near one end, used for smaller knives and integrals, the other is a four foot length of pine 2x4 that fits between the two vises on the bench for long blades.

Beautiful piece. KT

Jake Cleland is the guy, he does more in the style than anyone else here. The basic form is a short (3-4 inch) blade with a triangular shape, generally single edged, with no guard and simple handle (sometimes antler, more often wood). Into the Victorian era they got fancy carved handles often with silver mounts and gem stone pommels. Sometimes you see a bit of file work (called gimping, or jimping) on the spine. Although this is not a Sgian Dubh as such, it fills the same niche. This is one of mine that Jake said nice things about last week. Flat on the back, double edged with just a hint of a finger stop. It's a nasty thing, bit me 4 or 5 times while I was getting it together In the movie Rob Roy he has one in his hat at about 1:50

Are you interested in the Victorian style or an older style? I have not come across a lot of documentation of older sgian dubhs, but I think of it as "what would a simple, useful knife look like?" My reading of the history is that this evolved into the Victorian style of putting the knife in your hose and therefore making the hilt (what people see) the focus of the knife. But if you look in some of the sources like John Wallace's Scottish Swords and Dirks or James Drummond's Ancient Scottish Weapons there really is no mention of a "sgian dubh" at all and just one or two pictures of knives that are not dirks.

That makes sense given the composition and relatively small amounts of V and Mo. I guess I normally think of Mo as increasing high temperature strength and adding a secondary hardening peak, but it may be there to increase corrosion resistance in this case. My pet theory is that knives with alloys like this and thick edges are one of the big reasons there is a cohort of people who avoid stainless steels. They are soft so the edge gets damaged quickly, thick so the edge won’t cut when the apex dulls, and have a high alloy content so they take a lot of effort to sharpen. With respect to edge retention they lose handily to a well ground carbon steel blade. I think this steel could be interesting to try ground fairly thin and heat treated to the top of its hardness range. It could also be a good choice for an application where corrosion resistance is more important than a super hard edge, which, to be honest, is likely the case in most home kitchens (which I guess is why it’s used!).

No photos, but since I decided to bring the step by steps for the axe, hawk, and chisel, I'm spending today running all the bits through the tumbler to clean off the rust.

I like it

Go up to Show and Tell above and there's an entry from someone who makes Sqian Dobhs that shows several examples of his work. Doug

I would call 390F a bit low for that sort of blade. (The shape and size imply a chopping type of tool) I'm usually in the 390F range with kitchen knives with 1084ish steel. Being a bit too hard yet may have played into breaking when you hit the 2x4.

And to pin it. I had forgotten how good this is.

I really didn't know where to begin since you posted several knives with varying degrees of sophistication, but I'll give it a go: There really is a lot to be encouraged about since you are just beginning. The last one with the integral bolster is starting to show some promise. The fit and finish could use some more work in terms of evening out the level of polish, but I'd say it's pretty good for for starting out. The design is pretty wacky though. The finish on the other two kitchen knives leave a bit to be desired in my opinion. The Nakiri-like one would have probably been your best if you had cleaned up the forge marks in the blade. Of the bunch, that is the one that I think you were the closest on in terms of a good overall shape. Judging from the workbench, and the multi-wood kitchen knife handle, I'm guessing you've done some woodworking. That'll help you a lot. That multi-wood handle is a nice attempt. Adding some flats to the sides would help a lot in being able to "Feel" where the knife is pointing when you are holding it. Overall, the designs, especially the handle shapes need some work. I'm not great at designing a knife profile that looks right, so I'll let others guide you there. I find that very subtle changes can make a blade go from "Oh wow" to "Oh crap", but I'm not good at understanding the difference. What I would encourage you to do, however, is draw out what you are thinking before you start. Then force yourself to make what you drew. We all fall into the "Well, the steel told me this is the shape it wanted to be" trap form time to time, but really, that is a cop-out. Once I have the blade mostly done, I will trace it on a piece of paper, and refine the handle design with pencil and paper to tweak it before I start on the handle bits. Also, and this is very difficult, slow down and make each knife as good as you can. If something isn't right, don't let yourself off until you know you just can't do it any better. You'll learn more from each attempt that way. At what point in the process did the one blade break?

+1 I think it plays well with the other finishes on this knife. It's also done right (i.e. no pits or nasty hammer marks)

A couple of months back I was asked to produce a range of simple sgian dubhs for a high end craft shop in Edinburgh. We settled on a very simple basic pattern, to be handled in either plain bog oak, or bog oak with an antler face, with one structural pin and one decorative mosaic pin, and we also discussed a kwaiken inspired style as well. After a month which started with me getting covid, then a ridiculous cold, and then tweaking my neck to the point where I've barely been able to move for the past week, probably caused by trying to work when I was still way too weak, the deadline is fast approaching. I've got the first batch ready for polishing and gluing. I'm pretty pleased with how they're turning out, but we'll have to see how they sell when the place opens in a couple of weeks...

I know many have a lot of wall space to add decorative posters and memorabillia etc so on a ride today I came accross an interesting place that used to be a pub but is now a place with an enormous amount of all sorts of used "stuff" from tools and man cave interesting things through to kitchen and ladies interests and a great deal of vintage "junk shop" bits and pieces. Among an assortment of various anticqued metal posters I grabbed these two for the bike shed walls and an old dogs head cross peen hammer for the knifemaking workshop. It will take a bit of tidying over but not sure if it will be best to grind back to a clean face which will reduce it a bit from the 3 lb it is currently or get the welded up and clean it back to remain at the intended weight. Obviously, I will make a new handle that does not need the horse shoe nails to keep it in place.

I learned how to make this forge right here, on this forum, 20 years ago. Still use it for carbon damascus & blades. Just switch the same burner over to the drum forge for big pieces & stainless billets. Thanks again, Don.

I just finished building my version of this forge, lets hope it will last me 20 years as well. Browsing Don's site made me nostalgic, I remember finding it as a 13 year old and being astounded that there were still people forging knives in this world.

I decided I needed a knife for the cutting competition, and I sold my last one years ago. So: 1:00 PM 1-inch round 5160. 2:30 PM: A little rough, but I don't have time to make it pretty. This one is pure function. No tools used but hammer and anvil so far. Hammer includes power hammer, treadle hammer, and hand hammer, plus a handled hot cut, but still, this is all forging, no grinding or filing just yet.

How controlable is it with that thin an narrow if a handle? I made a couple of knives with small handles like that and found them difficult to control. Doug