Andre Basset
knifemaker - field engineer
- Joined
- Aug 31, 2012
- Messages
- 249
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After years of reading Bladeforum posts and the many fantastic WIPs here, I made my first knife. The design was finalized on 7/12/2016. Due to a heavy workload, I gave my self 30 days to hopefully produce a working knife and document the steps. Many thanks to those that contributed their time and effort to the forum!
For the novice knifemaker, it's strongly recommended that you keep the project simple at first and with-in your abilities using your available tools. Start off with a design with minimal steps, a small blade of metal of known composition that is easy to heat treat or, better, sent out for heat treat, a handle of inexpensive softer material that is easy to shape and finish. Simplify, don't use a complicated guard for now. If you're nice, another forum member can heat treat your blade or you can pay one of the services to heat treat it for you. Wait 6 months, or longer, before considering a forge.
And now to toss the rules out the window...
For those that can't wait to the end of the WIP, here's the finished piece.
Pre-final sanding:
Note: big grinder bite on blade spine near plunge - (the ugly side)
Stats for 5 inch light duty chopper - forge heat treated:
overall: 10"
weight: 275g/9.7oz
balance point: backside of guard/front half of index finger
blade: 4.75" sharp, 5.0" from plunge
cutting edge 5.6125"
max width just over 2"
spine thickness: 0.126" near ricassio
edge thickness: ~0.04"
handle: 4.75"
blade: 1095/15N20 lazy lader damascus of questionable origin (10" x 2.125" x 0.1875", 15 Ounces)
handle: African ironwood
guard: brass, double pinned and soldered
hardware: brass (all I had in the right sizes)
epoxy: G-flex
Not sure whether to call this a light duty chopper or fighter with the guard. Maybe a prairie chopper rather than a true woodland chopper. The blade design is loosely based on a fatter drop point inspired by one of J. Neilson's gorgeous dragon-skin Damascus skinners. The really wide full flat grind on this thin stock will magnify issues with my grinding technique and any mistakes will become evident very quickly. Heat treating, on such a wide thin blade could be interesting especially for a first time forge user.
That's right a propane forge was built for heat treating and this is my first blade ground on a 72" grinder that I recently built as well. There's going to be a learning curve for sure.
I'll be posting more photos of the WIP as time allows.
-Andre
After years of reading Bladeforum posts and the many fantastic WIPs here, I made my first knife. The design was finalized on 7/12/2016. Due to a heavy workload, I gave my self 30 days to hopefully produce a working knife and document the steps. Many thanks to those that contributed their time and effort to the forum!
For the novice knifemaker, it's strongly recommended that you keep the project simple at first and with-in your abilities using your available tools. Start off with a design with minimal steps, a small blade of metal of known composition that is easy to heat treat or, better, sent out for heat treat, a handle of inexpensive softer material that is easy to shape and finish. Simplify, don't use a complicated guard for now. If you're nice, another forum member can heat treat your blade or you can pay one of the services to heat treat it for you. Wait 6 months, or longer, before considering a forge.
And now to toss the rules out the window...
For those that can't wait to the end of the WIP, here's the finished piece.
Pre-final sanding:
Note: big grinder bite on blade spine near plunge - (the ugly side)
Stats for 5 inch light duty chopper - forge heat treated:
overall: 10"
weight: 275g/9.7oz
balance point: backside of guard/front half of index finger
blade: 4.75" sharp, 5.0" from plunge
cutting edge 5.6125"
max width just over 2"
spine thickness: 0.126" near ricassio
edge thickness: ~0.04"
handle: 4.75"
blade: 1095/15N20 lazy lader damascus of questionable origin (10" x 2.125" x 0.1875", 15 Ounces)
handle: African ironwood
guard: brass, double pinned and soldered
hardware: brass (all I had in the right sizes)
epoxy: G-flex
Not sure whether to call this a light duty chopper or fighter with the guard. Maybe a prairie chopper rather than a true woodland chopper. The blade design is loosely based on a fatter drop point inspired by one of J. Neilson's gorgeous dragon-skin Damascus skinners. The really wide full flat grind on this thin stock will magnify issues with my grinding technique and any mistakes will become evident very quickly. Heat treating, on such a wide thin blade could be interesting especially for a first time forge user.
That's right a propane forge was built for heat treating and this is my first blade ground on a 72" grinder that I recently built as well. There's going to be a learning curve for sure.
I'll be posting more photos of the WIP as time allows.
-Andre
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