Faux forge finish.

Whatever you think of it, be it good or bad, in my opinion it's being way overdone. Everything from neck knives to bowies now has these faux forging marks it seems. Some so deep they must surely be magnets for rust.
 
I see a lot of texturing too..Looks good on some knives others not so much..Carter uses it a lot on his knives anymore, though most of his knives are already forged he adds texture to them after that..Some look a lot like a shading stamp for leather work.
 
JTknives said:
Oh no I never thought you did For one sec. I'm sorry if I came across that way. Your knives are really nice by the way. I just mean I see it happen, and I see it happen here in the forsale section and it's just wrong.
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No, I was just making sure I wasn't coming off the same way. Love your posts, btw.

jdm61 said:
I like the blade shape of the top knife. :thumbup: As for me, I have only made like 20 stock removal knives and they were almost all made from 3V or AEB-L. Didn't; want to hit that stuff for fear of messing it up!. I have done 21 full tang knives. Yeah, I do the ABS 101 thing. ;) I forge because i enjoy it, plus it is the only way to make my own damascus. I aldo haver a big pile of W2 that is neither thin nor flat. With that said, i am clearly limiting my options by just doing that, especially when it come to kitchen knives. Lots of folks want stainless.
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I'm not big on SS. We do use CPM 154 on a fraction of our knives though. When we do we texture it with a small tap hammer that we etched a special texture onto the face. We do this cold, it doesn't take much of a tap to put the texture on the flats. This allows us to use the mill finished flats without having to surface grind it off. (My surface grinder is kinda a joke.) Then once we are past heat treat, the finishing of the textured flats takes a few seconds on the scotchbrite wheel, and we get the contrast.

I think its all about a person's personal taste. If you like hand rubbed flats, thats fine and your opinion is valid. For my taste it just looks sterile and lifeless. Kinda the same reason I don't like stainless. We don't get these knives back with rusty flats to fix very often. In fact maybe only twice so far in 7 years of full time making using this method. We turn out a LOT of knives and this is negligible.
 
It sounds like you have customers who actually take care of their gear. Consider yourself lucky.:D As for the stainless,I have used VERY little of it, but some folks want the stuff, so i adapt........a little bit. ;)
Fiddleback said:
No, I was just making sure I wasn't coming off the same way. Love your posts, btw.



I'm not big on SS. We do use CPM 154 on a fraction of our knives though. When we do we texture it with a small tap hammer that we etched a special texture onto the face. We do this cold, it doesn't take much of a tap to put the texture on the flats. This allows us to use the mill finished flats without having to surface grind it off. (My surface grinder is kinda a joke.) Then once we are past heat treat, the finishing of the textured flats takes a few seconds on the scotchbrite wheel, and we get the contrast.

I think its all about a person's personal taste. If you like hand rubbed flats, thats fine and your opinion is valid. For my taste it just looks sterile and lifeless. Kinda the same reason I don't like stainless. We don't get these knives back with rusty flats to fix very often. In fact maybe only twice so far in 7 years of full time making using this method. We turn out a LOT of knives and this is negligible.
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Well I'll say this with pride. I am blessed to have customers that are very good friends. They really make this job fun.
 
I'm not big on SS. We do use CPM 154 on a fraction of our knives though. When we do we texture it with a small tap hammer that we etched a special texture onto the face. We do this cold, it doesn't take much of a tap to put the texture on the flats. This allows us to use the mill finished flats without having to surface grind it off. (My surface grinder is kinda a joke.) Then once we are past heat treat, the finishing of the textured flats takes a few seconds on the scotchbrite wheel, and we get the contrast.
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Interesting.
 
It is just a finish, like any other. Sometimes however, it is a witness to the skill of the forger. When a smith does a minimum stock removal piece that has clearly been painstakingly forged in a complex fashion, I get all gitty inside and pee a little.
 
Rick Marchand said:
It is just a finish, like any other. Sometimes however, it is a witness to the skill of the forger. When a smith does a minimum stock removal piece that has clearly been painstakingly forged in a complex fashion, I get all gitty inside and pee a little.
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A really nice blade forged almost entirely to shape is a beautiful thing to behold..
 
Man, and all this time, i though that you did that rustic thing so well because you couldn't get belts delivered to your corner of Nova Scotia so you had to learn how to use big rocks for stock removal. What's next? No Santa Claus?. :D
Rick Marchand said:
It is just a finish, like any other. Sometimes however, it is a witness to the skill of the forger. When a smith does a minimum stock removal piece that has clearly been painstakingly forged in a complex fashion, I get all gitty inside and pee a little.
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I can kinda do that, but I cheat. I have a "bevel" cut in one of my press dies that will give me darn close to a perfectly straight and centered edge every time once I am done messing it up with a hammer. Much less gazing down the blade all squinty eyed. ;)
Kentucky said:
A really nice blade forged almost entirely to shape is a beautiful thing to behold..
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