- Joined
- Aug 30, 2007
- Messages
- 5,483
Well it was a fun filled day at the Fiddleback Forge yesterday. I went over to help Andy out a little with some of his knives and he helped me out with the Delta Foxtrot prototype knife.
This was a design I came up with for a good mid-size woods knife. A couple of the key features I decided on for this knife were a well contoured handle, a useable thumb ramp, and a practical and easy to sharpen blade.
The handle is a combination of my favorite lines from my favorite handles, which I think makes for an incredibly comfortable grip. On this prototype, it's just slightly too short, so the blade blanks I had made based on this prototype have a slightly longer grip allowing for a little bit more movement. The proto was really a learning experience and I've made a lot of small changes on the future blanks.
The thumb ramp is a big issue with me, like choils are with Andy. I hate the majority of thumb ramps out there and think that they are absolutely useless on the majority of knives and they are way too pronounced, because they are too far back on the handle and stick up too far. For some reason, most of the people who make knives with thumb ramps have NO IDEA where your thumb sits on the blade in real life. I like them to be more subtle so they are part of the blade lines and not a "feature". My thumb ramps are way forward on the blade to allow you to really put good pressure over actual cutting edge to add force to the cut and it also allows you to put a lot more pressure for pushing the tip through materials. Believe me, if your guys held this knife, you'd greatly appreciate the thumb ramp design. It looks good too. It doesn't look like a big chunk sticking out from the spine as on most knives that feature them. Mine blends in nicely. You can see on the blade blanks how I moved the thumb ramp even further forward from where I had it on the prototype.
The knife is O1 steel, 3/16" thick. You'll notice in some of the pictures a couple of similar blanks under the proto. These are the two versions that I'll be making of this knife. The standard version will be the Delta Foxtrot and the version with the bottle opener on the butt will be the "Peoples Knife".
Here is where this knife was the last time you saw it.
Here it is after heat treat.
and finally, ready for scales and final cleanup. Can you tell by the blade who taught me how to do bevels? lol.
Huge thanks to Andy! You da man homes.
This was a design I came up with for a good mid-size woods knife. A couple of the key features I decided on for this knife were a well contoured handle, a useable thumb ramp, and a practical and easy to sharpen blade.
The handle is a combination of my favorite lines from my favorite handles, which I think makes for an incredibly comfortable grip. On this prototype, it's just slightly too short, so the blade blanks I had made based on this prototype have a slightly longer grip allowing for a little bit more movement. The proto was really a learning experience and I've made a lot of small changes on the future blanks.
The thumb ramp is a big issue with me, like choils are with Andy. I hate the majority of thumb ramps out there and think that they are absolutely useless on the majority of knives and they are way too pronounced, because they are too far back on the handle and stick up too far. For some reason, most of the people who make knives with thumb ramps have NO IDEA where your thumb sits on the blade in real life. I like them to be more subtle so they are part of the blade lines and not a "feature". My thumb ramps are way forward on the blade to allow you to really put good pressure over actual cutting edge to add force to the cut and it also allows you to put a lot more pressure for pushing the tip through materials. Believe me, if your guys held this knife, you'd greatly appreciate the thumb ramp design. It looks good too. It doesn't look like a big chunk sticking out from the spine as on most knives that feature them. Mine blends in nicely. You can see on the blade blanks how I moved the thumb ramp even further forward from where I had it on the prototype.
The knife is O1 steel, 3/16" thick. You'll notice in some of the pictures a couple of similar blanks under the proto. These are the two versions that I'll be making of this knife. The standard version will be the Delta Foxtrot and the version with the bottle opener on the butt will be the "Peoples Knife".
Here is where this knife was the last time you saw it.
Here it is after heat treat.
and finally, ready for scales and final cleanup. Can you tell by the blade who taught me how to do bevels? lol.
Huge thanks to Andy! You da man homes.
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