Guess I'll show y'all my student...

W

Will Leavitt

Joined
Jul 28, 2006
Messages
3,953
Meet my student, Faulkner, he lives about 10 miles from me and comes over once a week. He's the youngest son of one of my best friends from my skate punk days.. yes I was a skate punk.

Shaping the blade profile...

ShapingTipShape.jpg


Learning the arcane ways of the whompin stick....

LearningtoWhomp.jpg


His blade is the bottom one, pretty close to final shape but he's about to learn why you don't leave hammer marks and forge clean.....

WhatWeForged4-12-11.jpg
 
Last edited:
If he wussed out drawfiling I wouldn't bother with a thread... since he did 4 hours of drawfiling with temperatures in the 80s and 80% humidity I'm pretty sure he can finish the blade out.

Here he is learning exactly what I meant when I told him that he can either hammer cleaner now or pay later... He's regretting not hammering a bit longer. Drawfiling the tang.
DrawfilingTang4-19-11.jpg


Cleaning up the profile....

CleaningProfileUp4-19-11.jpg


Filing in the plunge cuts....

FilinginPlunge4-19-11.jpg


Drawfiling the blade.
DrawfilingBlade4-19-11-1.jpg


Sent him home with gear to do his "homework" sanding fixtures, files, a copy of my sanding block and sand paper to get the blade to 120x finish.
 
Nice to see them start young. I wish I knew how to make knives when I was young. Hell, I wish I knew now!!:D Keep us posted on his progress please.
 
That's awesome :). I haven't been at this terribly long, and I'm learning the same lessons. It's good to see a young guy interested in this "arcane" stuff.
 
Yeah, when he showed up I told his mother that "this is the sucky part, I'll know if he wants to make a knife after today." Guess he showed his true colors. He's a very polite and attentive young man that listens to my babbling about the craft without snickering at me when I can see it ;)
 
Very cool Will!!! Good on 'ya bud :)

How old is he? Looks like he's been getting some really good instruction since that blade is forged closer to shape than a lot of them I see from guys who have been doing this stuff a long time. :)
 
Awesome Job Will, It's fun teaching isnt it! I was a sk8r punk to lol. I miss my Powell Peralta Steve Cabellero!

Jason
 
Nick, he's 16. He'll fit right in with the rest of us because he's already a hermit ;) I told Charlie this kid has a lot of natural talent with the hammer. He's the recipient of my "pay it forward" build, the funds will go to purchase supplies and tools.

Jason, I love teaching, it's one of the things I miss the most about the Army, I loved teaching my Soldiers and to watch them teach as they grew.

I remember those boards, I rode Lester Kasai Hammerheads. My nickname was "Lester" because I resembled him and skated like him. I'd been skating the local ditch hotspot called "The Rock", the skateshop was like 100 yards from it. I walked in one day and the owner called me Lester, apparently people didn't know my name and called me "that Lester looking MF." Name stuck for years and the old school skaters call me that. My signature move was a 360 Kickflip with big board and a footplant to wall ride. I loved street skating, I'd ride ramps but didn't have the passion for it.

Our skate group, The Stymie Boys, had a kid sponsored by P&P. He could ollie picnic tables and fire hydrants. We were weird for punks, we wore cut off khakis and Izods with our weird hair ;) I miss those carefree days, skate all day, stop when you were too drunk to stand. I tell people I remember when Henry Rollins was skinny and Tony Hawk was a kid.
 
lol Had to go look up what a hammerhead board was... I didnt have a good area to go street riding as I lived in the country, so my cousin and I built a ramp and we wiped out more than we pulled em off... i.e. faceplants instead of handplants lol. I apologise for the trhead drift, those were great days :D

tracker_kasai.jpg


Jason
 
Sweeeet Will, you finally found someone that can stand your company!:eek: Bet your kinda regretting that welcome back remark huh! :D

Hey no stuff, it is great to see someone passing on a trade and whatever knowledge rubs off along the way! :thumbup: There is too many young men out there that could benefit from that kind of contact. That’s from an ole army man to an ole letherneck!:D
 
I was a punk too but couldn't skate worth a damn so I learned to play guitar instead.

Anyway, good on you to pass on the traditions. I agree, if he gets through those first few marathon filing sessions he'll learn a lot and probably stick with it. Cool!
 
We'll see how his "homework" goes next week. Handrubbing and what kind of job he does on that task. I told him to leave some scale on the blade to remind himself of where it came from and that 10 minutes with a hammer is an hour with a file.

Jason, yup that's the Hammerhead, it was the first big board with a cupped nose. I did a lot of freestyle tricks on the big boards so I needed that feature, it was a good board for everything, streetstyle, ramps and just cruising long hills.

Jame, one of my favorite "punk to guitarist" stories. We had a kid we called "Skate Scrotum", typical 12 year old fat kid but he had a nice mini-ramp in his yard so of course we skated it, ate his food and insulted him a lot. One day we're skating and he's like let me play this new tape. In pops Duran Duran, we all scream and then stomp on the tape. I pop in the Repo Man album and you could just see his mind change. Later he moves to LA and is doing well as a studio musician and does some production work at his home studio (he owns the former house from one of the guys from Toto.)

Cliff, leatherneck huh? I figured you for one of the lesser services ;) Just read a great essay in "The Legion" magazine titled "The Definition of A Marine" by LTG John Kelly. It's a piece about 2 young Marines that reported to St Peter after spending the last 6 seconds of their lives defending their gate and brothers against a car bomber while everyone slept.... 2000 pounds of explosives and they stopped it at the gate. The whole scene was captured on security camera, they start firing, IPF pop off rounds and flee, they do mag changes and lean into the fire........Navy Crosses for both. God bless the Marine Corps.
 
My oldest son (35 now) was a skater punk.Dang im old.:eek:Id love to learn forging and pounding red steel like that.Nice of you to take time with that young man.There's lots of trouble he could be getting into instead.
 
I like the idea of using golf balls for file handles. Did you just drill them and pound them in?
 
jawilder said:
I like the idea of using golf balls for file handles. Did you just drill them and pound them in?
Click to expand...

Yes, I drill the hole slightly undersized then pound them..... wear safety glasses when drilling, I didn't know that some golf balls have a liquid center. I use golf balls for just about anything in my shop that has a pointy part that I don't want to contact. My sanding bar has tapered ends and I use golf balls on those for handles also. I get them at the local flea market for $3 for 15.
 
When I was in Freshman Spanish class my buddy and I took a golf ball apart with our pocket knives and the sucker exploded on us. That liquid got on everyone and everything around us!
 
Golf balls for file handles, dang, I never heard of that before. Thanks for the tip, I live mere moments away from a golf course...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top