A Birthday knife

J

J T Robbins

Joined
Jan 30, 2008
Messages
33
Needless to say I was excited and pleased when my Grandson asked me to make him a knife for his 13th birthday!
He’d liked the first knife I’d made with the octopus on the sheath, so we talked about what he’d like for his knife. He described a knife of good useable size with a metal sheath, a Damascus blade, some finger grooves on the handle with a trigger-guard sort of guard, and the rest was up to me.
Unfortunately he asked me to do this only a week before his birthday, so he ended up having to wait a bit for slowpoke me to get it finished. He also lives about a thousand miles away, so didn’t get to see it til it was finished.
So this is how it turned out. The blade is a ladder pattern Damascus that I ground/filed from a larger blade. The sheath and dragon are sterling silver. The skin covering the handle, part of the sheath and the frog is black stingray skin. The guard I made by twisting three pieces of mild steel round bar together, then brazed the mess together, pounded it flat, and filed and bent it to shape. I made the smaller pieces bordering the skin the same way, using some mild steel wire. On the back of the sheath I soldered on a brass plate and engraved an inscription to him.
This was a departure from my first knife and really fun to make, especially since it was for my grandson!
And yes, he’s happy with it. :D
Comments, critiques are certainly welcome.
Thanks for looking, John

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Oh man, lucky grandson! That's a beautiful knife, way to go :thumbup:
 
critique???? does not apply.

What a great gift, and I'll bet it was fun to make, knowing it was for family. that's awesome. I'll bet you a dime this serves as a springboard to get him into making knives.

Zip
 
haggismonger said:
critique???? does not apply.

What a great gift, and I'll bet it was fun to make, knowing it was for family. that's awesome. I'll bet you a dime this serves as a springboard to get him into making knives.

Zip
Click to expand...

that's just about exactly what I was thinking, so I won't bother repeating it.

But I will say that your knife is REALLLY COOL! So unique. Especially how your plunge cut is so extreme and then the line continues through the D guard. Such obvious care and thought into themes and contrasts, and the construction of this thing is pretty sweet, to boot.

Rayskin and Dragons, D guards and damascus....:D:thumbup:
 
Thank you guys for the kind words! It's much appreciated!
And yes, he's already asked me where he can find some parts to make a knife so I sent him a couple links. :D

The critique part is because this is my 2nd knife so I'm still learning. I look at knifes pictured on this forum and think Wow, how'd he do that! Hopefully more skill will come with patience and practice.

Arguing with the ray skin to go where I wanted it was a treat, but got easier as it went along.

With this one I really tried to get things to flow well together to try to get a degree of continuity through the sheath, blade and handle, and am pretty satisified with the results. But also hoping the next one will be better!

I've spent many years restoring old rifles, but making knifes is really more fun. Maybe it's that creating something, instead of repairing something, that makes it exciting. I already have a third knife in mind, but again it'll be a departure from the first two.
Thanks again!
John
 
"With this one I really tried to get things to flow well together to try to get a degree of continuity through the sheath, blade and handle, and am pretty satisified with the results."

Looks like you really succeeded! That's another very lovely work of knife art from you. I certainly am looking forward to numbre three>

John
 
Second knife?
Would say you have a lot of talent and it's obviously your firearm restoration skills helped here.

Do you have any photos of your first?

I like it very much. Your grandson is very fortunate to have a grandfather who made such an effort for a thirteenth birthday and you are fortunate to have a thirteen year old grandson who appreciates such a fine knife.
 
Thank you guys!
John, I’m enjoying making them and trying to expand my skill level as I go. With these first two I’ve concentrated more on the overall look, but I think with the next one I need to pay more attention to the blade, making the grind lines more defined and crisp like I see on a lot of the blades here. The guns I work on are so old that nothing on them is sharp or crisp, and I think that experience has carried over to a degree with these knifes.

Kevin, I posted pictures of my first knife on this forum about 1/31/2008 in a thread titled ‘Something different’, but my subscription has expired so I can’t search for the link. Maybe you saw it back then, but for a reminder, here’s a few pictures of it.
It’s a bit on the small side but works great as a letter opener!

The first one took me forever to make, the second only half as long, so hopefully the third will go even quicker!

This forum with all its great makers, pictures and tutorials has been a huge help to me!
John

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J T Robbins said:
Kevin, I posted pictures of my first knife on this forum about 1/31/2008 in a thread titled ‘Something different’, but my subscription has expired so I can’t search for the link. Maybe you saw it back then, but for a reminder, here’s a few pictures of it.
It’s a bit on the small side but works great as a letter opener!
Click to expand...

Ah!!!!
When I read in your post that it was your second knife and saw the creature on the sheath, your knife below and previous post came to mind. But the name didn't seem right.

Sir, I'm just going to say it, You need to make more knives. You are just too good not to. ;) :)
 
Thank you guys! You're too kind :)
Stefan, I very much enjoyed the pictures of your knifes as well!
John
 
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