Christopher Price

I used Buckeye Engraving, and am happy with what I got.

As a bushcraft person, as well as knifemaker, I need to point out that it's the Carbon you're burning, when you strike a flint against steel. The flint is harder than your hardened steel, and the material you're shaving off quickly burns, as sparks, which you then catch and get your tinder going. Higher carbon is better. Lower alloy is better. The historical ones were very simple steels, not modern high-performance springs. Getting back to basics is more important than scrounging material. Technique has something to do with it too, and if you're not experienced at starting

I learned just about everything I needed to know from a not-so-sober-Bowie when I shared a hotel room with him one night at Larry's hammer-in. There's a price for some knowledge.

Ben's a fine man, treated me very well when I was on set. Doug is probably my favorite person there, though, just in total character. I enjoyed the game, understand its limitations, and mostly appreciate what it taught me about my own skill set. Fun fact, nothing I made on tv was anything I'd ever made before on my own... but several of them were things I'd thought of, deeply, before the challenge came to me. That helped a lot, as well as having experience in many different shops over the years. Also, having a degree in TV production helped me block some goo

The notch, or "Nail Nick" is best done with a sharp punch made for the job, and done before hardening. A little touch-up grinding will take out any bulge from the work, and you should end up with a pretty professional looking feature. Best of luck.

Dude, I still occasionally apply the Secret Desert Wood Finish (ear wax and nose oil) for my more "rustic" pieces.

Ahh, Tai Goo's old-fashioned Pisspatina!

Correct... moving to Parks with steels not set up for that quick a cooling could lead to failures. Harder steel, yes, but if it's converting faster than the alloying elements allow, it just tears itself apart.

The risk you run with a fast oil is that it will crack your blades. Their chemistry just isn't set up for cooling that quickly. And yeah, I've had it happen to me, enough that I'm really cautious about my quenchant nowadays.

I wouldn't use parks for any of those three. Jake is correct.

I'm pretty sure I saw that film in elementary school... or one very much like it.

If memory serves, most historical examples are in the 100-300 layer range. That's what I've done, and I've been pleased with the results.

I second Alan's suggestion. As a matter of general practical advice, the path of good knife-making is littered with trial and error, and anyone (not just you) who expects a perfect recipe right from the beginning is bound to be disappointed. Perhaps you do things exactly the same as someone else, but their crafting process and yours are different enough, that you need a different approach. That's fine, and entirely valid. Often we learn more from the mistakes we make on the way, than we do my simply following a recipe, and we develop our own styles as well, which is a good thing fo

Having handled much of Jeff's collection, I can say the curl is fairly unique in preservation, but not remotely surprising. I find it consistent with low-complexity tooling in the period, and making replicas like that wouldn't offend my sensibilities at all. On the profile geometry, it's important to remember that what you're often seeing is excessive wear from sharpening relatively low-carbon steels over and over with rougher stones than we're typically used to in modern cutlery. There's almost certainly equal offset on the original edge as there is the spine, making it symmetrical with

I make and use shear not for fancy looks, but to replicate appropriate material for historical reproductions that call for it. That limits you largely to Colonial America, and some adjacent English work of the 16th-18th centuries, for any recognizable application. Of course variations of it exist in antiquity, but from my research, this is where it shows up most. I also adapt it to serve as "piled steel" in old Roman or Norse work that is just layered up carburized iron.