Was not going to post another knife here until I had a lot more expereince but could not resist. I am pursuing this hobby in a vaccum, don't know any other "knife people" to share my work with.
Built this for a KITH in another forum but wanted to share it here since most of my knowlwdge was gleaned from this forum. In fact, the design of the knife was influenced by some of the recent WIPS here and by the work posted by Claudio Sobra, Hansen, Wheeler, RyanW, Lemee and others.
Edited addition: The KITH was for a fighter knife of any style that "...I will be afraid to be in the same room with". I took that as a license to try some styling and construction techniques on a single knife that I have not done before.
- Aldo's W2 steel with hamon. Should be about 58-60 rc hardness.
- The blade is 0.2 inch thick at the handle with a distill taper to the tip.
- 6 1/2 inch recurve blade. About 11 1/2 inches overall.
- Raised clip with false edge (but it could be sharpened)
- Forged to rough thickness and very, very rough shape from 3/8 inch stock. Stock removal from that point. I have rudimentary forging skills.
- Dyed elk antler handle with 416 SS finger guard and fittings. File worked brass spacer and brass pin throught the butt cap.
- The front washer (seppa?) is an antler tip cut at an angle at the curved portion of the antler tip. The original width and shape of the antler piece is preseverd. I did end up shaping the top and bottom slightly to get it to look right visually.
- The right handed sheath has 3 bi-directional loops that are riveted in place. I borrowed the bi-directional loop design from the Winkler II sheaths shown in last months Knives Illustrated. Each loop will take a 1 1/4 inch belt/strap either horizonally or vertically. The user should have lots of options for carry with this sheath.
This is my 5th completed knife. Lots of "firsts" for me on this knife, largest blade, true finger gaurd, butt cap, front spacer, etc. I spents lots of time during polishing trying to make sure my edges were "sharp" and not rounded over.
The design came out well but I made lots of "first time" mistakes. Got the not so bright idea to wrap the polished blade up with paper before taping it up for guard installation and shaping. I was worried about the glue from the tape messing up my polish on the hamon. Sometimes any tarnish left from etching is marred by the glue. I thought the paper under the tape would prevent this. It did but.... filings from shaping the guard got under the tape/paper and onto the blade. This resulted in very fine scrathes on the blade that could not be polished out. I only discovered this after removing the tape. Lesson learned. Tape well so nothing can get under the tape. The scratches are only visible at certain angles in direct light but it's a flaw I want to avoid in the future.
Likewise need to work on my filing precision. The spacer filing and finger guard slot are not up to standard. I think I've work out some things to try next time around on that score....
Anyway, I am pleased with the result, here she is:
The knife profile has 2 straight lines that come together on the spine about 1/3 up the blade from the guard. I worked really hard when sanding to preserve the line from that intersection on the spine and to not round it over. Mostly successful. Forgot to take a top view pic of the spine to show that line... Will need daylight to take that photo.
Was trying to get a shot of the antler piece used on the front washer in the pic below.
The pic below shows the shaping of the butt cap. This was a bear to photograph, reflections or poor focus ruined all the shots. This is the best of about 20. The back of the butt cap has an upsaide down egg shape with two sweeping curves carved in the surface.
Barry
Built this for a KITH in another forum but wanted to share it here since most of my knowlwdge was gleaned from this forum. In fact, the design of the knife was influenced by some of the recent WIPS here and by the work posted by Claudio Sobra, Hansen, Wheeler, RyanW, Lemee and others.
Edited addition: The KITH was for a fighter knife of any style that "...I will be afraid to be in the same room with". I took that as a license to try some styling and construction techniques on a single knife that I have not done before.
- Aldo's W2 steel with hamon. Should be about 58-60 rc hardness.
- The blade is 0.2 inch thick at the handle with a distill taper to the tip.
- 6 1/2 inch recurve blade. About 11 1/2 inches overall.
- Raised clip with false edge (but it could be sharpened)
- Forged to rough thickness and very, very rough shape from 3/8 inch stock. Stock removal from that point. I have rudimentary forging skills.
- Dyed elk antler handle with 416 SS finger guard and fittings. File worked brass spacer and brass pin throught the butt cap.
- The front washer (seppa?) is an antler tip cut at an angle at the curved portion of the antler tip. The original width and shape of the antler piece is preseverd. I did end up shaping the top and bottom slightly to get it to look right visually.
- The right handed sheath has 3 bi-directional loops that are riveted in place. I borrowed the bi-directional loop design from the Winkler II sheaths shown in last months Knives Illustrated. Each loop will take a 1 1/4 inch belt/strap either horizonally or vertically. The user should have lots of options for carry with this sheath.
This is my 5th completed knife. Lots of "firsts" for me on this knife, largest blade, true finger gaurd, butt cap, front spacer, etc. I spents lots of time during polishing trying to make sure my edges were "sharp" and not rounded over.
The design came out well but I made lots of "first time" mistakes. Got the not so bright idea to wrap the polished blade up with paper before taping it up for guard installation and shaping. I was worried about the glue from the tape messing up my polish on the hamon. Sometimes any tarnish left from etching is marred by the glue. I thought the paper under the tape would prevent this. It did but.... filings from shaping the guard got under the tape/paper and onto the blade. This resulted in very fine scrathes on the blade that could not be polished out. I only discovered this after removing the tape. Lesson learned. Tape well so nothing can get under the tape. The scratches are only visible at certain angles in direct light but it's a flaw I want to avoid in the future.
Likewise need to work on my filing precision. The spacer filing and finger guard slot are not up to standard. I think I've work out some things to try next time around on that score....
Anyway, I am pleased with the result, here she is:
The knife profile has 2 straight lines that come together on the spine about 1/3 up the blade from the guard. I worked really hard when sanding to preserve the line from that intersection on the spine and to not round it over. Mostly successful. Forgot to take a top view pic of the spine to show that line... Will need daylight to take that photo.
Was trying to get a shot of the antler piece used on the front washer in the pic below.
The pic below shows the shaping of the butt cap. This was a bear to photograph, reflections or poor focus ruined all the shots. This is the best of about 20. The back of the butt cap has an upsaide down egg shape with two sweeping curves carved in the surface.
Barry
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