And Now Another Large Cutter

[RogerP]

That Sinistre is soooooo sweet.

I'm far from sure it's Don, but he's my best guess at present.

Roger

 

[NickWheeler]

I'm sticking with my original guess.

LOVE that blade.... gorgeous insanity!!!

 

[mohd]

Lots of thanks to Roger, John, Stuart, Lorien, Jim and Nick for all your replies! Lots of thanks as well to all the BF members who took a peek into this thread

I think The Smith might be somebody like me who love to play hide and seek when he was just a little kid! So he purposely took the shot of the right hand side of the blade to hide his identity (i.e. thank you very much to The Smith for doing it that way!)

When I let The Smith know about this thread he replied me as follows ..

(Date: Wed, 14 Jul 2010 10:27:27 -0500) .. That should be a fun thread also. Thanks for posting ..

What's The Smith doing now? So sorry, I don't really know his steps of works! I guess .. now maybe he is working on the bolster from his own damascus steel or reshaping the stabilized curly Koa as the handle! BTW .. IIANM .. I read somewhere in BF that he'd sent some stabilized curly koa to another knifemaker and it resulted in a great looking handle with lots of figures and characters :thumbup:

Mohd.

 

[billf]

well, I've sent curly Koa to several knifemakers......but I didn't make this one!!!

haha


Bill Flynn

 

[Don Hanson III]

I'm enjoying this thread, Mohd. Tell 'The Smith' to get to work.

Who ever it is, they are getting a handle on the crazy hamon stuff...

I would have used highly figured Black Walnut myself.

 

[mohd]

.. but I didn't make this one!!! ..

.. Tell 'The Smith' to get to work.

Who ever it is, they are getting a handle on the crazy hamon stuff ..

Well, The Smith is in the process of fixing the handle to the blade :thumbup:

I know .. I know for sure that the above picture will confuse most of you all Seeing it at the very first sight I was so very confused myself

.. Here's a shot of the handle (not finished) ..

Any say, pal?

Mohd.

 

[John Frankl]

NOt confusing, really. Those pins are set up just right for peening.

I say Don Hanson, period. It looked like him rough forged, but after the hamon I was pretty sure.

 

[mohd]

I say Don Hanson, period.

Let's see the finished handle in the following shot! I keep on wondering .. what's the brand of the camera used by The Smith to take all the shots?

It shows a tapered tang. Very nice choil. The plunge at the choil looks just perfect. I think the edge isn't sharpened yet. Is the edge sharpening will only be done as the last step just right before shipping? Is it a common practices among all the knifemakers to sharpened the knife edge last? Any answer, pretty please!

And below is the shot of the finished knife! What a gorgeous giant cutter! What say you? And again the shot was taken from the right hand side of the blade

BTW, the above shot is the last picture that hides the identity of The Smith! So, better to make the guess now! Join the fun! The next batch of pictures will show the left hand side of the blade with the maker's mark on it and of course it will expose the identity of The Smith

mohd.

 

[Lorien]

that is so friggin nice I can't stand it.

 

[Wulf]

Well, like a lot of other folks who have commented here I'm fully expecting to see something fishy when you show the other side of that blade.

And I have to say, it's a pretty spectacular knife. Always cool to see such a wild hamon on a damascus blade like that

 

[Lorien]

it's hard to imagine anyone else but Don making a knife that looks like that.

 

[SBranson]

Gotta be Don.

As to the question about sharpening at the very end.. What I do, (and if it's not common please let me know) is start the hand sanding and once I get to about 220 with all the grinding marks out, I sharpen the knife fully. I then rub some 1000x along then edge just enough so I won't cut myself or shred the sandpaper and start with the 220x again and go through the hand sanding finish. This makes it so the final sharpening leaves only a wisp of an edge line and not interrupt all the hand sanding work.

 

[RogerP]

That is a truly gorgeous knife - but then, we could tell that from a few photos back. The Koa turned out great and the damscus bolster was a nice touch.

Roger

 

[mohd]

IMVHO tis the right time to unveil the not so mysterious knifemaker whom I called as The Smith in this very thread

Below is the shot that shows the left hand side view of the cutter whereby we can see the maker's mark at the top of the ricasso near to the spine!

Maybe the maker's mark is not that clearly shown in the above picture! Below is the shot of the the cutter that shows the ricasso, the bolster and the handle. And the maker's mark is there at the top of the ricasso near to the spine!

Now .. confirmed .. it's a maker's mark .. a picture of a sunfish stamped to the ricasso!

A sunfish!

In the beginning my tang stamp was my initials DH, but in 1996 I changed it to a sunfish stamp designed by my wife.

Yes! It's the maker's mark belong to Don Hanson III! The Smith is none other than Don Hanson III

Looks like it could be a rare, full-tang Don Hanson... No matter, I really like it.

Cogratulation to Nick who was the very first one to correctly sense the touch of work made by his knifemaking comrade :thumbup:

My congratulations also goes to Joe, Lorien, Roger, Stuart, Jim, John and Wulf for correctly guessed Don Hanson III is The Smith.

Many thanks to all who made replies or took a peek to this thread.

My very special thanks to Don, first for his willingness to build this beautiful large cutter for me, and second for joining the fun by giving his responds in here. Thank you very much Don

And now, the knife is going to Paul Long to get the best fit suit. Hope Don wouldn't mind to take another few shots of the knife with the suit for shared viewing later on

mohd.

 

[RogerP]

^^^ Congrats to you on another real winner. :thumbup:

Roger

 

[Don Hanson III]

Thank you, Mohd. This has been a very good project. But let me tell you, a blade this
long(14") and this wide(2-3/8") is much work, from forging, to grinding, to heat treating,
to hand sanding. I do like how it turn out, I want you to cut down trees with it, and
report back

Thanks to everyone here for the comments. Hard to fool this bunch

 

[canineforge]

Congratulations on an awesome cutter, Mohd! The sunfish looks really small on that piece.

Paul may need to go to the sale barn before he dresses that one up.

Enjoyable thread, tremendous result.

- Joe

 

[dsloan]

Congratulations Mohd. This is an awesome knife. I had to restrain myself before. I had the chance to see this knife when I visited with Don about a month ago. It was truly impressive then in the forged stage. I can't imagine what it is like now.

Dave from Diller

 

[stabber]

Mr Fish made it??

Beautiful piece. Congrats!! That sure is a incredible Hamon!!!:thumbup:

 

[SBranson]

Fantastic! It looks like you could fell a tree in one swoop. Vicious and beautiful at the same time.