Had one that exceeded your expectations?

These two are as close as I've come to exceeding my expectations.

The damascus skinner was my first forged blade! Full tapered tang with a distal taper. 1084/15N20 (my first damascus too!) four bar composite alternating twist. I purposely etched the blade with the mokume bolsters on to get the color in the damascus. Stabilized and dyed birdseye maple handle.

The other is forged from a ball bearing, with a stabilized and dyed birch burl handle. I purposely use the end where the bark had been to get a really cool effect at the end of the handle. You can see in the photo of the end that it looks pretty neat!
 

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I feel kind of silly posting anything here after what I've just seen, but this is as close as I've come to meeting my expectations, even if the plunge is a bit off.

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Bruce, that ring knife just blows me away. I remember a similar one from your MS knives, but this takes it to a whole other level! I don't even have the words to describe it.

Same goes for you Emre, those are cool freakin knives.

You guys blow me away, thanks for sharing your excellent and inspiring work!
 
ddavelarsen said:
I feel kind of silly posting anything here after what I've just seen, but this is as close as I've come to meeting my expectations, even if the plunge is a bit off.
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Mr. D.L., your humbleness sometimes drives me crazy :grumpy:. I post a pic of my knives, thinking they are my best and good enough to show here. Then you post something beyond my abilities, waaay higher level I can dream of but your attitude at your knives and the level of your craft is at least modest :rolleyes:. Either your expectations are too high or there are some flaws on your work that we cannot judge from the photos. IMHO that dagger is one of the best dagger I've ever seen, shape of guard, spacer, handle, sheath... Just perfect to me.
 
Exceeding my own expectations has never occurred, as far as knife making goes.

I purposely set the bar outside my reach.

This fighter was the only knife that came from my forge in 2007.

It was a tough year for my family and turning out anything of any

consequence in the knife shop, didn't seem relevant.

In that light, this knife did exceed my expectations.

Fred

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I have only made one batch of knives so far so no knife has exceeded my expectations but this one blew me away in comfort of the handle. Not many people liked the shape in drawings or the blade blank but once handles were put on it fits incredibly well (too bad my groomsman is scared to break it and does not use it):
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My best mans knife (my brother's- white handles) and our cake knife(longest one) turned out better in the spines than I thought they would do:
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I thought that they turned out alright for my first attempts at making knives with broken legs as well as my first filework attempts.
 
James_Terrio said:
My work is nowhere near the caliber you gentlemen have presented here. Frankly, I surprise myself every time a knife comes out straight and sharp.
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James, did you happen to see the hack job way up in post #1?!? :D



I'm glad to see some more pics and stories of great knives here. My inspiration for this thread came from starting with a knife blank that I didn't like much and had lots of flaws, but I decided to just throw it together quickly for more practice and to beat on (and not feel bad) to test out my first go at HT of O-1. My expectations were almost zero when I started, but for some reason I ended up loving the resulting knife despite its issues and the relative speed with which I finished it up.

There must be other reasons (ie, it was a piece of scrap, didn't like the design at first, threw it together quickly, etc.) that would cause a similar feeling about a particular blade. It doesn't have to be the best you've ever made (or even close), but surely there has been one that surprised you when it was done, for whatever reason.
 
Well, the one I glued-up last night is coming together nicely, if I still like it when I get the handle shaped and finished... we'll see.

I probably just jinxed myself :D
 
Perhaps I should have titled the thread something like "Ever had one surprise you?". "Exceeding expectations" probably conveys a different meaning than I had intended when I posted it.
 
Nothing that really exceeded my expectations as of yet, but I was proud of this little design. It was one of those, "what can I make with 4 1/2" of leftover stock?".

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James_Terrio said:
That's a sweet little necker, IH8U. You should make a batch of those, I bet they'd sell briskly.
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I actually did, I used a whole 18" bar and cranked out 8 of them. I have 4 left, but I'm waiting on my kydex, it should be here on Monday.:)
 
Paul- I've had some that surprised me, but unfortunately... it was never a good surprise! :(

Well, I take that back (a little) it's always a bit of a surprise when you etch a random pattern damascus blade, or get some activity in a hamon that you didn't really see with the initial grinding. :)
 
T. Hendrickson said:
very nice, so what is the brass hardware just behind the cutter used for? Is it some sort of alignment system?
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You're right, you prop that brass thing against the spine and push it towards the blade, that way the cutter does follow the spine at the same distance. on my jig it is a drill bit because I figured when that alignment piece is a flat surface it doesn't do a good cut at the bend of a recurved blade, a drill bit or a pin contacts only one point to the spine and the cutter can turn parallel to the spine. I hope I could explain...
 
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