milesofalaska
Knifemaker / Craftsman / Service Provider
- Joined
- Dec 4, 2010
- Messages
- 514
One of my latest ideas I wanted to share. Fossil ice age bone handle I think one of the 700 pound beaver. Sometimes I build a knife around the handle material, not usually done. We most often build a blade then look for a handle. Fossil hardly altered, used ‘as is.’ Custom cast eagle head guard – brass from old Yukon River barge propeller. Oh yea, the blade, almost forgot. (smile) We usually address our steel first! My blades are hardly ever routine. 1095 usually treatment however… I acid etched, forged copper into the process, stamped, cryo deep cold treated. A lot of ‘fooling around’ having fun. Not really tons of time in it. Plying seeing what look I can come up with. I wanted this to have a rustic old look. Like an artifact itself, or spiritual knife with character and ‘energy.’ A sacrificial knife, or ‘reenactment’ item from some long ago era someone might connect to. I often ‘begin,’ and have nothing in mind. I simply ‘do.’ I do not know what it is until I am done. Often the customer tells me what this is, ‘just what they have been looking for,’ no other like it. Some techniques I use might give others some ideas for what can be done.
Or… we knife workers create steel tools. It’s a process, I call it an art but almost scientific, you do this you do that and you get predictable results. You can take that so far and it’s a blade. We get past a certain stage and the value is not changing by a lot. I feel I can make a better then average blade for ‘some amount of money’ the blade can go in a kind of plain knife or a fancy knife but that high end may not cut any better then the plain, once you got the steel process down. Meaning, after a certain point value is all about getting fancy, adding art, giving it a look. I can cut a moose up with a $100 knife about as well as a $1,000 knife. So. So why pay or create high end? It’s all about looks. So I kind of stop talking about my heat treat, temper numbers, quenching oil, hardness number, ‘the process,’ and get intrigued by what happens after that?
The stand is ice age elk anther found in the same area, same age ‘lived together’ with the beaver creature the handle is made of. So kept the two together. A “Clan of the Cave Bear’ kind of item? And a wood block from the same area.
Or… we knife workers create steel tools. It’s a process, I call it an art but almost scientific, you do this you do that and you get predictable results. You can take that so far and it’s a blade. We get past a certain stage and the value is not changing by a lot. I feel I can make a better then average blade for ‘some amount of money’ the blade can go in a kind of plain knife or a fancy knife but that high end may not cut any better then the plain, once you got the steel process down. Meaning, after a certain point value is all about getting fancy, adding art, giving it a look. I can cut a moose up with a $100 knife about as well as a $1,000 knife. So. So why pay or create high end? It’s all about looks. So I kind of stop talking about my heat treat, temper numbers, quenching oil, hardness number, ‘the process,’ and get intrigued by what happens after that?
The stand is ice age elk anther found in the same area, same age ‘lived together’ with the beaver creature the handle is made of. So kept the two together. A “Clan of the Cave Bear’ kind of item? And a wood block from the same area.
