- Joined
- Jul 1, 2003
- Messages
- 270
Adam shared some photos of the recent "Applied Meat-Cutting School", and I thought I'd add another.
During my week of the class, I wanted to demonstrate to the students that knowing how to build a highly-finished knife, though important, is not the only way to finish a forged blade. So I forged a piece of 1084 completely to shape in profile, bevels, everything. I intended to finish the knife there, but due to a recent snafu with the local fire marshal, the school was without any gas forges or heat treating ovens, so there wasn't really a good way to do quality heat treating on the blade, so I brought it home and finished it here.
The only grinding was those shiny bevels. Even the tapered tang was just forged flat and straight and left that way. The scales are what I can only refer to as "bamboo" micarta. It was originally thought to be maroon, but inside it is primarily yellow with irregular splotches of maroon. I know others have referred to this stuff as "natural" but I like bamboo better. So there. The scales are thin, to leave room for the wrap which is done in a Japanese style, for an incredible grip. If you lose your grip on this thing, you need to spend time squeezing a tennis ball!
Knives like this are so much fun, because there is so much creative freedom on the anvil to create the shape and the tapers and everything, without ever worrying about whether the blade is thick enough to grind off all the hammer marks. Course, you can't fix anything with a grinder either!
There's some more info at here.
During my week of the class, I wanted to demonstrate to the students that knowing how to build a highly-finished knife, though important, is not the only way to finish a forged blade. So I forged a piece of 1084 completely to shape in profile, bevels, everything. I intended to finish the knife there, but due to a recent snafu with the local fire marshal, the school was without any gas forges or heat treating ovens, so there wasn't really a good way to do quality heat treating on the blade, so I brought it home and finished it here.
The only grinding was those shiny bevels. Even the tapered tang was just forged flat and straight and left that way. The scales are what I can only refer to as "bamboo" micarta. It was originally thought to be maroon, but inside it is primarily yellow with irregular splotches of maroon. I know others have referred to this stuff as "natural" but I like bamboo better. So there. The scales are thin, to leave room for the wrap which is done in a Japanese style, for an incredible grip. If you lose your grip on this thing, you need to spend time squeezing a tennis ball!
Knives like this are so much fun, because there is so much creative freedom on the anvil to create the shape and the tapers and everything, without ever worrying about whether the blade is thick enough to grind off all the hammer marks. Course, you can't fix anything with a grinder either!
There's some more info at here.
