An afternoon with Ray Laconico

[raylaconico]

Great post. It drives me crazy to see a maker's shop that clean. I can barely find my steel in my shop for all the dust and tools.

I don't know why but the pictures make my shop look cleaner than it really is. There's so much dust in my garage that I get a little emabarassed when someone comes to see my shop.

 

[raylaconico]

As hot as it has been in Visalia, I'd bet it is fun to work in the garage.

And with all that cool gear, he still finds space for a little Harbor Freight belt grinder.

Don, I try to buy as much of my stuff from Harbor Freight. If they carry what I need, I usually get it there. Their stuff works for me and much cheaper too.

 

[tknife]

That is so cool. Watching and helping your knife come alive like that. I'm jealous! Ray is one of the very few knife makers I've met in person and he's a really cool guy.

 

[jds1]

Cool shop pics CB. :thumbup: And VERY nice little knife.

Jeff

 

[sasha]

That is a nice and clean shop you got there Ray.. Explains why your knives look and feel so good.. Maybe all of us from down south should make a pligrimage to see Ray doen him magic....

Sasha

 

[mymindisamob]

Very Cool!

 

[Joezilla]

What a great thread! Thanks for showing us how Ray makes some of his fantastic knives!!!

 

[johnspark]

Very nice work Ray, and thanks for letting us have a look.

 

[Rockywolf]

Sounds like a fun time. And the knife is awesome!

 

[C Bryant]

Sounds like a fun time. And the knife is awesome!

It was a blast, and a VERY awesome knife!

 

[PharmBoy01]

Thanks for the thread/pics. I got a Woods Knife from Ray last week and it is immaculate! It's a treat to see where it came from and to see the master at work. As many others have accurately said, Ray's work is fantastic and he is a very nice guy to do business with. Keep up the good work!

 

[PB Wilson]

Cool thread. I've got some steel and some tools (even an extra toaster oven laying around) and my plan is to make some knives for myself someday. I love seeing "behind the scenes" pics because it gives me all sorts of ideas on how I might accomplish something myself. Nice work guys!

Also, my Laconico is a truly stellar knife. I've used it a bit over the past few months and it's been wonderful for all sorts of tasks. I'm still a bit afraid to give it some real hard use because it's so beautiful...

 

[raylaconico]

Thanks guys for the comments. As you can see, you don't really need a whole lot of fancy stuff to make knives. Here's a list of what I have...

1. Paragon heat treating oven- the most expensive and probably the best piece of equipment I have.
2. Kalamazoo 2x72 grinder- I don't recommend this grinder but it's what I have.
3. Harbor Freight 1x30 belt sander
4. Lowe's 4x36 belt sander with 6" disk combo
5. Harbor Freight metal cutting bandsaw
6. Lowe's wood cutting bandsaw
7. Harbor Freight small drill press
8. Cheap toaster oven for heating up kydex
9. Kydex press and rivet/eyelet setter from knifekits.com
10. The rest is just a bunch of hand tools like files and stuff like that

 

[HikingMano]

That's just plain awesome. :thumbup:

 

[mcjhrobinson]

great thread!!!! thanks C for documenting and thank you ray for giving us an insight to how you work your magic!!

 

[C Bryant]

great thread!!!! thanks C for documenting and thank you ray for giving us an insight to how you work your magic!!

My pleasure.