Leaderboard

I don’t think I ever posted this one here. Very satisfying patterning on the blade.

First dry fit-up: There's still a full day of tweeking details but I'm getting close. By the time that I got here I had lost the good light for pictures so the quality is minimal. I'll get some better photos when it's completed.

After spending a week teaching a class, I got enough shop time to get the silver wire inlaid in my ivory hilt. There's still a good bit of work left to do on the ivory as you can only do so much before the inlay. Once I get the final shaping done to the flutes I will sand & polish it before applying a gloss clear coat. This hilt has eight wire inlays which may seem like a high number but I wanted this handle so have a lot of silver for contrast.

I have an order for an Heirloom project, so I'm doing a bit of R&D that I wanted to share. I'm tooling up to make a mosaic damascus dagger. I haven't made any damascus of any kind in a year or so, so I'm a little rusty. I had a billet that I had intended to tile, I took that and added some 15n20 and 1084 filler pieces. This was the first weld. I then brought that down to 1/2" square by 45 inches long. Then I cut it into 9 pieces and stacked those and rewelded and brought that down to 1.25" x 6 I'm thinking that I

For me it was an attention thing. I'm not actually super social. Even social media takes a certain toll. I was a late adopter to the Facebook move, but it was clear one had to go there at the time for marketing. Sadly, it's a thing one must do when one is really bad at getting to regular old j-o-b's on time. LOL. I actually deleted my first Facebook account, and then realized I had to suck it up and join the fray. It's become an increasingly toxic environment on more than one front and for more than one reason. No need to go into that here and now, but it's intrinsic to the site, and it always

I forged out a little scrap piece of Damascus in a 1-cubic inch blade smith challenge. Starting Stock: 1/4' by 1" by 4" Hardened

I spent the last two days taking Kevin Cashens' basic classes on blade making and handling. What an amazing couple of days. Just learning the finer points of heat treating 1084 was worth it, not to mention the tips and tricks picked up throughout the rest of the build. It's very humbling to spend time with someone that has that depth of experience. Makes me realize just how much I still have to learn.

My dad just sent me this link. Got a big kick out of it. https://guff.com/this-giant-swiss-army-knife-once-cost-1500-on-amazon-and-the-reviews-were-hilarious

I've yet a good deal of sand & polish left to do on this guard but the knuckle bow is now ready for inlay. I decided to do a dimpled texture of either side of the inlay for effect. The ivory cabochon here will get a domed head pin in the center.

One of the challenges with KITH is the international perspective, as well as the multi-state domestic law problems with fixed blades above a certain size. Just as an example of what 1 cubic inch can become. Starting piece of scrap 1095 was about 3" long, 1.125" wide and 3/8" thick at one end, 1/4" thick at the other. This is a full tang design, so there is a lot of mass used for the handle area that could have been pushed into a much larger blade with a stub tang.

Well, since my 6 month project has taken a year, and I’m only half done, I figured I better start on the second half. Barring any strong objections, this is my current plan for the second blade. I want to follow a more organic shape and we will see how well elk antler engraves. Probably a nickel silver bolster and maybe spacer. I’ll try to do more of a WIP on this one...

We got a new puppy. He is ¼ Newfoundland ¼ great pyrenees ¼ husky ¼ Australian something? His name is Dozer.

So I've paid the bills for the better part of 15 years by making stainless damascus wedding bands. Well, for the past year no one has been getting married because no one can have weddings. So no one's buying rings. I had to get by on PPP and EIDL and a garden. I got a lot of very needed housework done, like building a new deck and fixing the garage doors for insulation. And I started laying groundwork for new ideas in case it really looked like things were done as far as the rings go. Yep. Looks done. LOL. There's just no predicting the next wedding season and sales. Or anything, really. I'll

Finally got my AmeriBrade surface grinder set up and ran it on a maiden voyage - flattening a Damascus chef knife I'm working on for a chef friend. How did I ever work without this thing?!?!? 45 minutes TOTAL time - set up, learning how all the bells and whistles work, and flattening. OMG! I posted this else where, but there HAS to be a proverb somewhere that goes: Blessed is the man who has an understanding wife who lets him buy tools, for he shall make interesting and beautiful things - QUICKLY!

Looking REALLY good Gary. The dimpling on the bow works. Posts like this (and recently Rob T.) are making me itch to try my first sword length blade.

My first ever batch of beer is ready! (Ok, I've been sneaking samples for the last 2 weeks...) It's actually not half bad. Now I just need to learn what flavors all those different grains are actually responsible for

Tightening the pivot won't help. If it has play when closed, there's not enough steel on the edge side of the tang, usually at the kick, but also at the tail end. Given the way the spring on that works, it's most likely too much off the heel. If the kick is too short, the blade goes too far into the handle. If the heel is too short, the spring can't hold the blade fully closed. I've done eight finished folders now, and I have five ruined blades, three ruined backsprings, and two ruined liners. It's just part of the learning curve.

Four months later and finally the monkey is off...... During December I had a surprising occasion early morning, sober, where a friend lighting up almost cracked me, found that very surprising. Currently people smoking in my company no longer bothers me. I'm very surprised my Dad is also still going strong, had a chat with him recently and was surprised to hear that he struggles badly at times, he hides it well enough. After 64 years of smoking to be expected.

A friend asked me if I could take one old "stage" sword and regrind it into a sharp one, for show purposes, like PET bottle cutting and to have one to show to audience as a sharp one. It was quite bad. Supposedly made by a "good" maker, it had no tip, the guard was loose (even though the sword was not too much used), the pommel is cracked where he was punching too cold and the "edge" had big teeth (because even though its 5160, the heat treat is bad and it is on the soft side). If I reground it for the correct profile, I would have no metal left, so I have ground short convexes on the present

I have said publicly that I hate these things, and it's true, I hates 'em. But I'm also happy to make someone else happy (and make a couple of bucks) so here it is. The good camera needs a charge and the phone is at best adequate, but here you go. Cut from a crosscut saw 0.10 Steel (1095 at a guess) Stabilized maple burl handle 10 inch edge This is actually the second one, I tried to heat treat the first one (I got careless grinding and had a soft spot on the edge) and it turned into a potato chip. Everything I did made the problem worse. I just gave up and started o

BillyO, the clients husband saw a video of a Serbian farmer using a thing like this as a food prep tool. That one clearly had been cut from a saw. That's what he wanted, so that's what I made. I can't find the video, but I'm sure if you scout around, it's there. What do Zombies need a knife for? Geoff

Latest one of the bench. 5” recurve skinner. Blade is Go Mai mild steel outside/W2 core/nickel & copper in between. Wrought iron guard with stabilized claro walnut. As I play with adding nickel and/or copper to the mix I’m coming to realize I like one or the other. If I mix both it just looks “off”. Thanks for looking.

My next step with this one is to do the final shaping, sand & polish of the guard in preparation for the ivory inlay. I'm still debating as to whether or not to add a little engraving/filework around the cabochon inlay.

Another two ready to go. A J T Ranger with walnut over buffalo horn on the 1095 blade in cross draw sheath and a light dagger with tasmanian blackwood over a red liner and brass guard on the 1084 blade.

You just have to remember that at the copper it's not a weld, it's brazing. Intergranular adhesion rather than diffusion bonding. Forge at your own risk, and keep the copper away from the edge. Note that brazed joints are just as strong as arc welded joints (~60-80Kpsi tensile depending on composition), so no worries about it breaking that way. The "intergranular" part means there is a risk of cracking, though. Of course, cracking in the quench is always a possibility with any steel combo. Adding copper or brass just ups the risk a little.

I'd love to participate in a KITH again, I hope this year I will have a bit more time to work on these kind of fun projects. I like the 1'' starting stock idea the most, I think giving everyone freedom over their designs makes for the most fun and diverse entries.

There is. Working alone with a light hammer, the anvil needs to be a bit higher. Not too high, that's even worse for you! I like the face to be about 3cm higher than knuckle height. That way the hammer strikes squarely with the elbow not quite fully extended.

I have finished the temper and now moving on to cleaning the fullers before final grinding then sandpaper. So still a long way to go but I have no rush or deadline so I am just enjoying the process. For those interested in how I ended up tempering this blade- After I got a full straw temper from the residual heat in the heat bricks I utilised the flat bar welded to my vise (that I clamped the blade in after the quench ) and opened it up so that just the edges were sitting on the flat bar. I then worked my way along the centre of the blade with a p

Though I spent much of my shop time getting ready for a class that I'm teaching tomorrow, I got the pommel made, drilled, and the knuckle bow bent to fit today. It's always a bit of a challenge to bend it exactly to fit and I heated & re-heated it several times before the end fit the hole in the pommel exactly right. As my class is reproducing "Bowie No. 1", it will be lengthy so I may not have the time to work more on this for a while.. I'll post more on this rapier when I can devote the time to it. If you

I did the machine polish on the blade it is not at 400 grit and ready to hand sand out, and I riveted the bezels inplace. moving forward.

1/4" is no problem with short pieces where you can set the weld in 1 or 2 heats. It's not really a surface area problem so much as thinner pieces are harder to keep properly aligned. These days I try and set the welds by squeezing with tongs in the forge, which seems to help with slippage and having the unwelded parts open up on you...

Looks great for a first blade. I'll give the same advice I was given a while back. Pick one thing you really like about it and do that again on the next one. Also pick one thing that you dont like and focus on doing it better. Do that with every knife you make and you'll be turning out top notch blades quicker than you would think.

You know who I miss on the forum? Dick Sexstone. That guy was the coolest old artist ever. I loved how his sense of humor was captured in his work. He built model spaceships out of copper that looked like they were straight out of a 60's Buck Roger's comic. His folding knives were some of the first I'd seen that had illustrations in pattern welding, and really elegant ones too, not the gaudy over-the-top mosaics you sometimes see. I meet him at Ashokan and he gave me a German book on patternwelding that is one of my prized possessions. What a cool cat. I seem to remember he could

Hmmm... mead

What Joshua said. That really works.

Adam, there are two ways to look at hardness in a knife blade. One side of the coin is that the higher the hardness the better it will hold an edge. The other side of the coin is that the lower the hardness, within reason, the easier it will re-sharpen. So you have a choice, a blade that's in the high 50's HRc that you can sharpen on a flat piece of hard sandstone that you found out in the woods if you forget your sharpening stone at home or a blade in the low 60's that will hold an edge longer but will need that hard stone to dress up the edge when it goes dull. Remember all blades will l

I've been out of the knife world for a while. I never considered international trading issues.

Hi Brian, how are you? From my humble experience and listening to the most experienced, I think that 6 mm is fine for the thickness of the blade in the fort, although I like it better with 5 mm, and then once You have the shape of the blade ready, you have to handle the distal taper taking into account more the distribution of masses, leaving the strong third almost untouched and quickly lowering towards the tip. Another important issue is the remaining thickness of material between the two fullers, which in your graph looks quite thick, you should lower it until it is at least 1 mm or less. T

what about a miniature knife? they can be pretty simple but get very tricky with a bit of detail. you could do a miniature set if one knife isnt enough, ive done a mini knife with a mini belt and sheath that could have been worn as a bracelet if the belt wasnt sized for a 12" G.I.JOE. and ive been wanting to do a kitchen knife with a cutting board in 1/4 scale. ive made a miniature multibar seax by forgewelding little tiny PW bars together, its hard to see what the patterns are because the twist bars got stretched but it works. its hard to get the proportions right on

These will all be away this week The 12 1/2 inch cimeter has Tasmanian Blackwood over brass on the 1084 blade A pair of plain handled pro boning knives from members of the local meat industry A "Serbian Chef" for a school days friend and the willow handle is a reminder of the trees that were in the paddock between our houses where we spent time. Has a 1084 blade. A 4x4 Hunter with spalted Buckeye over brass on the 1084 blade

I work in government during the day. I get enough "design by committee" during my day job. I will not participate in my off hours.......

not really 'shop', but I got to 2500 followers on instagram today! - Not that I seek positive affirmation (errrrrm) but Ive been on 2495 followers for months Probably should make a bit of time to make some more knives now!

That looks great! - (would be better if you had dropped the tip a bit ) we should totally have a forum design by committee knife and all make one to show and tell I would have a go at making that if others were up for a make it / swap it challenge !

Serpentine drawer fronts are hard to make, Alveprins. Done "classically", the drawers on Chippendale furniture are cut from one piece of wood and then have a veneer applied to the front. Craftsmen of today are more likely to stack thinner pieces together and glue them in a fixture with clamps..........and then veneered. In the modern factory, they are steam bent in a heavy press and then veneered. Classical furniture in that style is typically made from Mahogany wood.

Did a run today with decent results. I used a bigger vacuum to get more air and added in a ball valve to adjust the air: The set up is still a little bush league, but affords much more control. Feedstock was 910 g of 1018 divided into six roughly equal charges. Here it is once the fire was going. The fire was nice and hot all the way down when it was started. The time it took the charcoal to burn down after each charge was: Test: 2:40 1: 2:45 2: forgot to start stopwatch 3: 3:00 4: 2:30 5: 2:44 6: 3:20 Just charco

A left handed "D" handle on the chinese vegetable knife with black lacewood over brass on the L6 HC blade and a Serbian chef knife with stabilised willow on the 1084 blade. I went to the same school and lived next door to the guy the serb knife is for and there were a lot of willow trees in the paddock between us so the willow was an easy choice for his handle I learned a lesson with the serb knife in that a wide blade like this is a real chalenge to snad after hardening so in future I will do a pre HT hand sand and do an antio scale coating to make things less difficult and time consumi

messed my back up , so progress on every thing has been slow, but i got the guard sanded out to 220 and fit the stone settings. I was planning on setting two more stones in the ends on the quillons but I am not sure might be to much.. if I do I will need to order smaller stones these are 6mm and I am not sure they will fit

The 12 1/2 in Cimeter is finished with its quilted macrocarpa handle over the slant back buffalo horn bolster on the 1075 blade and so is another 7 1/2 inch slicer with the Swamp Kauri handle over the slant back brass bolster on the NitroV blade along with the Wapiti hunter with the OD canvas micarta over black paper micarta on the 1095 blade.

This is the latest katana that I have finished. Is based on a wagon wheel design for the tsuba and fittings. The wagon wheel represents the owner's travels all over the world. The wheel has five spokes as he trekked across the world in five legs. The menuki were shaped like walking sticks. The blade is W2 diferentially heat treated.