Photos Kepharts...They just Work

[Bad Ninja]

If the Condor Kephart blank that I bought as a pattern is any indication of the typical factory edge, then it needs to be thinned a LOT. Translated into knifegeekese, that means you have to pretty much regrind the blade bevels.

Baryonyx did his thing to my Kephart before it arrived.
He also inspects his inventory before sending a blade out.
Then I touched it up.
It will shave your mom.

Nice! I lived in central FL for 3 years. 2 in Pinellas Co (like living on a vacation land) and the last in Minneola which is in Lake Co. (Just west of Orlando) Now Lake Co is a small county compared to Orange Co. But Lake Co is so named because it has over 1500 named lakes.
I fished the Clermont chain of lakes. It's the chain south of Lake Harris and Little Lake Harris where they filmed the BassMasters. The Clermont chain was a lake and a canal, lake and a canal...I had a aluminum semi-vee and I'd troll up the canals in stealth mode. I saw more gators and big arse snakes than you could shake a stick at. Snakes as big around as my forearm. I'm 6'2 and weigh in at 270. Big snakes.
Would of been prime area for a Kephart.

Nice! I lived in St Pete /Indian Rocks Beach for a while.
Nice area. Great fishing there. I hooked a 90lb Tarpon at John's Pass right in front of Gator's bar and grill..lol

 

[Uncle Timbo]

Baryonyx did his thing to my Kephart before it arrived.
He also inspects his inventory before sending a blade out.
Then I touched it up.
It will shave your mom.




Nice! I lived in St Pete /Indian Rocks Beach for a while.
Nice area. Great fishing there. I hooked a 90lb Tarpon at John's Pass right in front of Gator's bar and grill..lol

Oh yeah! I lived in Largo. Back then I was a carpenter and one highlight for me was helping build a brand new 65' wooden pirate ship in Snug Harbor. What a trip that was. The Lady Barbara. I would of worked for free but I didn't tell them that!
Ok, back on topic, you should of seen the ol boy hand carve the stair rails coming from the upper deck down. The chisels he used were uber sharp and he would strike them with leather mallets. The rail was laminated and he did a rams horn design on the transition. Back then I was happy carrying an Uncle Henry stockman or my Tree Brand.

 

[jdm61]

Our biggest snakes are the diamondbacks. Most of the pics of ridiculously huge ones are really "forced perspective." There was no 10 foot rattler found in St. Augustine, but I have seen a fair number in the 4-5 foot range. Here is one that my dad and a friend caught in the Keys in like 1968-69. Dad wanted to capture it alive and sell it to the Miami Serpentarium, but his friend wanted to eat it.

 

[FortyTwoBlades]

If the Condor Kephart blank that I bought as a pattern is any indication of the typical factory edge, then it needs to be thinned a LOT. Translated into knifegeekese, that means you have to pretty much regrind the blade bevels.

Yes, they come pretty stupid-thick in the edge from the factory. Fast to grind out, but would take a while to remove with stones. With manual options you be best reaching for a file.

 

[Bad Ninja]

Just so we keep the thread on topic and Kephart related, I have been inspired to make a Kephart from an old sawmill blade. Blade is probably 70 years old.

Cut and shaped with an angle grinder.
I need to get some grinding belts for my HF belt sander, and build a heat treat forge, which shouldn't be a problem with all the info available here on BF.

 

[Pilsner]

Just so we keep the thread on topic and Kephart related, I have been inspired to make a Kephart from an old sawmill blade. Blade is probably 70 years old.

Cut and shaped with an angle grinder.
I need to get some grinding belts for my HF belt sander, and build a heat treat forge, which shouldn't be a problem with all the info available here on BF.

Excellent! Look forward to seeing this one progress!

 

[bikerector]

Just picked up a new, interesting one over the weekend. It's pretty decently built for such a cheap price. I like the blade thickness. It kind of reminds me of a mora classic or the condor Kephart in the simplistic design. The gimping, swedge, and finger grooves in that handle are only on one side. It has a really nice polish for the price though. No idea on how good the steel is yet but it takes a decent edge after fixing up the stock edge.

 

[Pendexter]

Hey BF, this thread inspired me to make my first knife.

Kephart in 1095, 4.5" blade, 4.5" handle, 1" tall, 1/8" thick, convexed edge and spine, walnut handle, 1/8" brass pins. 5.55 oz compared to the 4oz as he describes. Not sure why...

I tried to be as historically accurate as possible, especially with regards to this line that he wrote:

"It was made by a country blacksmith, and is one of the homeliest things I ever saw;"

 

[bikerector]

Hey BF, this thread inspired me to make my first knife.

Kephart in 1095, 4.5" blade, 4.5" handle, 1" tall, 1/8" thick, convexed edge and spine, walnut handle, 1/8" brass pins. 5.55 oz compared to the 4oz as he describes. Not sure why...

I tried to be as historically accurate as possible, especially with regards to this line that he wrote:

"It was made by a country blacksmith, and is one of the homeliest things I ever saw;"

Very cool. As I'm curious, what does the convexed spine add to the knife's function?

I know 90 degree spines are very common now-a-days but I'm starting to dislike them as they are rough on my thumbs for fine work and knees for knee lever. I've considered rounding off some of mine and leaving only a small section for the 90-degree spine so my thumbs and knees take less abrasion.

 

[Pendexter]

Very cool. As I'm curious, what does the convexed spine add to the knife's function?

I know 90 degree spines are very common now-a-days but I'm starting to dislike them as they are rough on my thumbs for fine work and knees for knee lever. I've considered rounding off some of mine and leaving only a small section for the 90-degree spine so my thumbs and knees take less abrasion.

I just finished the knife yesterday, so haven't had enough time with it to know if there's actually any performance benefit. I did lightly baton through a piece of wood to see if it would chip or roll. Mostly to test my heat treat/temper.

I don't use a fire steel to start fires, and don't personally have any other good reason to have a 90-degree spine. I think that having a convex towards the spine has the same function as a swedge. I did a 3/4 saber grind, and convexed it up and down from that point. So technically there's less contact as you slice through material, since the blade cross-section looks like an airfoil.

I was trying to be as accurate to the original as possible. Per an article on one of the two remaining Colclesser Brothers original Kephart's:

"The shape is convexed about halfway up the blade, and then slightly convexed back toward the spine as well. This makes the thickest part of the blade in the middle, rather than at the spine. Combined with chamfered edges at the spine and a distal taper, such a shape should move very efficiently through soft materials (such as flesh while processing game)."

If you run a search for "The Original Kephart Knife Examined" you should find the article in question pretty easily.

However, the Colclesser Bros. Kephart was 5" long. They sold them in 4" and 5" styles.

But Kephart's writings in Camping and Woodcraft describe the knife as 4-1/2" long.

So I guess I was going for a hybrid of the Original Colclesser 5" and Kephart's writings...

 

[FortyTwoBlades]

"The shape is convexed about halfway up the blade, and then slightly convexed back toward the spine as well. This makes the thickest part of the blade in the middle, rather than at the spine. Combined with chamfered edges at the spine and a distal taper, such a shape should move very efficiently through soft materials (such as flesh while processing game)."

Chiefly it has to do with tip strength and having a rounded back to the tip. There are a variety of tasks where riding the spine at the tip against something as a guide is extremely useful, and were it not for this you could basically just have a FFG blade half the width and only have it lose a tiny bit of rigidity since adding material perpendicular to the direction of force scales linearly but adding material parallel with it increases cubically, so losing a little material vertically but proportionally much less laterally wouldn't cause much of a drop in stiffness. But a flat-backed knife with the point aligned with the spine couldn't do that handy depth-gauge trick, among other similar such tasks, and the tip would also become somewhat more acute, top to bottom, which is another strength tradeoff when dealing with punching into resistant materials or boring. And, of course, having a FFG on an equally wide blade would have the advantage of reducing how thick it is behind the edge, but at the expense of the tip being made thinner as a result.

 

[bikerector]

Thanks 42. I've heard that the original was double convexed but I never knew if it was for a reason or if it was just because of how forging works out while trying to get a wider blade. So it's almost like getting a stiff tip like a dagger with the midline being thickest and running through the tip, if I understand it right? Whereas a FFG thins down the tip because it's further down the primary grind.

 

[FortyTwoBlades]

Thanks 42. I've heard that the original was double convexed but I never knew if it was for a reason or if it was just because of how forging works out while trying to get a wider blade. So it's almost like getting a stiff tip like a dagger with the midline being thickest and running through the tip, if I understand it right? Whereas a FFG thins down the tip because it's further down the primary grind.

Essentially. It's difficult to say for sure if it was a deliberate feature or an artifact of the manufacturing method, but IF it was done deliberately then that would be the reason why. Think of it as basically being like a single-edged dagger with the spine side not brought nearly so thin as the edge side and the grind being a convex rather than crisp. Similarly, true daggers can basically be thought of as two knives placed back-to-back. The wider a blade is, the lower the primary grind can be.

Think of it from the standpoint of a stock removal blade where you're carving away at the initial blade stock, rather than in forging where you start with a given amount of material and can smush it around like clay. The edge shoulder and spine both have a maximum thickness equal to the stock thickness. If both of these are equal you'd basically have a scandi grind. If the edge apex is centered, that means that the further back the shoulder is, the thinner the edge angle is. Now, if you introduce playing around with the shoulder thickness, that imposes a full flat grind of a certain angle onto the blade, and as the shoulder moves towards the spine, the edge angle decreases like before, but the shoulder width (which is being held fixed) causes the grind angle to thicken. If you hold the position and width of the edge shoulder fixed and raise the spine, that thins the grind angle. Does that make sense? This is part of why narrow daggers typically cut like crap. The centerline is typically thick for strength, but with the halves (the "two knives back to back) making up the already narrow blade being only half that width, it necessarily makes for a pretty chunky wedge shape that isn't very penetrating in a cut, despite how effective it is at piercing with its point. It's prioritizing a taper in a different axis entirely, at the heavy expense of the other.

 

[jason41987]

I seen someone take an Old Hickory knife and make it into a Kephart and I was thinking of doing the same thing with new scales too.

 

[Pendexter]

And, of course, having a FFG on an equally wide blade would have the advantage of reducing how thick it is behind the edge, but at the expense of the tip being made thinner as a result.

Time for someone to make a kephart with a strider style nightmare grind. Hollow on the streight portion and convex at the tip. Thin bte for slicing and stout tip for those pesky car doors or grizzly bears...

 

[22-rimfire]

I added a Lon Humphrey's 3V Kephart to my pile today. We'll see how it cuts.

 

[Mistwalker]

I like Fiddleback knives and have been REALLY tempted the last few Blade Show visits at their tables. The thing about the above "Kepharts" is they aren't true to the Kephart design. Joe Flowers did pretty well with the Condor Kephart. The Fiddlebacks are however great woods knives.

Added: I think Ethan Becker may well be a modern Horace Kephart in all the good ways relative to knives. The Horace Kephart story is pretty interesting and one always needs to view it from the perspective of 100 years ago. Things weren't the same as now in terms of behavior.

Horace had the knife he wanted made using the knowledge and skill sets that were available at the time in human history. If he were alive today he may very well have had a completely different pattern of knife made, we can never know that. Had there been the knowledge of steel heat treating that exists today and the more refined steels available he may have gone with a finer point with less fear of it failing the same way I do these days with the newer steels and processes. While I am okay with the original handle of the Kephart design, I much prefer the pointier blade profile of the Fiddleback version for several reasons. To me the pointy blade isn't just "stabby" I find it much more utilitarian in my uses than the blunter tips I see on most "traditional" Kepharts.

 

[Bad Ninja]

I don't think Horace gave much thought to metallurgy.
He wanted a knife that would accomplish the tasks he needed, and fill the spot.
It wasn't a "one knife for all things", as much as a " knife for knife chores".
He didn't use a knife like an axe to split would or abuse it in the way alot of people do today.
He would spend many months in places where you couldn't just walk out and get a new blade, so he had to take care of the tools he had, and use the right tool for the job.

 

[22-rimfire]

I generally prefer a fairly pointy blade style in the woods. We'll never know what Horace Kephart would do today. I don't think he was a real knife designer as you are Mist. He never shows a diagram/sketch of the "Kephart" knife in his books. Rather he shows a trailing point saber ground knife that is more pointy. People have said it was a Tops knife that he sketched. I like the Fiddleback Kephart, but it really isn't true to pattern and probably should be called a modified Kephart or something if they like the name. That was my point earlier (without going back an re-reading what I actually said).

I don't know how "famous" H. Kephart was in the outdoor world at the time. But I suspect the original was named that to capitalize on his name. That's okay as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Bad Ninja]

I generally prefer a fairly pointy blade style in the woods. We'll never know what Horace Kephart would do today. I don't think he was a real knife designer as you are Mist. He never shows a diagram/sketch of the "Kephart" knife in his books. Rather he shows a trailing point saber ground knife that is more pointy. People have said it was a Tops knife that he sketched. I like the Fiddleback Kephart, but it really isn't true to pattern and probably should be called a modified Kephart or something if they like the name. That was my point earlier (without going back an re-reading what I actually said).

I don't know how "famous" H. Kephart was in the outdoor world at the time. But I suspect the original was named that to capitalize on his name. That's okay as far as I'm concerned.

Horace Kephart was pretty well known, and was a published author.

Oddly, he died in a car wreck.