criticism wanted

N

Nathan Gould

Joined
Jul 21, 2008
Messages
361
I made this knife for a friend of mine, the blade was roughed out and filed by me but the finish and heat treat was done by Shing, who was excellent to work with. Blade is o1, 4 1/2 inches long and flat ground with a secondary bevel.

Handle is brass, leather, magnolia i think and amboyna burl handle is 5 inches long.

005-1.jpg


blade is a bit mucky in this photo.

here's a couple of others i've made over the years:
012.jpg

IMG_0281.jpg
 
Overall, a nice job. The handle seems a bit fat for the blade. ( that may be the camera angle).
Stacy
 
bladsmth said:
Overall, a nice job. The handle seems a bit fat for the blade. ( that may be the camera angle).
Stacy
Click to expand...

yes, i often hear that, the problem is that i have very big hands so find it hard to jusdge what most people feel would be a good size. i thought about thinning it down by the bolster and removing say 2-3mm off of the whole legth of the front face but i was worried that as the handle is quite thin this would make it uncomfortable.
 
the tangs go nearly all the way through, i destruction tested one of these thinking that it would be a weak design but with modern glue, the handles all gave out before the glue.

i have made them with pins in, but i sometimes leave them out
 
I would like to see the spine of the knife meet the front cap. I also think the handle is too big for the blade, not too big for anything, just disproportionate. Instead of trying to judge by your hand size, try to judge by the blade shape and size. You'll be surprised at how many different knife handle styles fit your hands.
 
I'm not that up to speed on the style as it's not my cup of tea really, but aren't many of the Nordic/Scandi style of knives like this (with the handle somewhat larger in proportion to the blade?) Either way, I would also prefer a more proportionate handle to blade balance, but that may not be true to the style which I'm assuming you are after.

Nice work and execution on them.
 
I may have missed the point if your asking after the top knife it looks good to me. Better than the two below. That is more to the correct proportion for a scandi.

The bottom two , the second one from the angle shown the blade seems to be a couple of degress out. If it was lifted up the lines would look better to me the handle would not look so fat. I think it is closer to right than the photo.

The bottom one to be harsh we all made knives like that a few years ago, the improvement is obvious well done on your latest.

Just my theory big hands don't matter if you get the look right hands will adust to the feel. (with in reason) That is unless you have arthritis or other repetative strain injury. An old sheep shearer was a classic case it was nore comfortable to have a fat handle.
 
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