knife designs

J

jdaniels

Joined
Jun 16, 2003
Messages
46
how do you guys come up with your designs. I look at ones i like that have characteristics that i like and try to combine them into a knife i feel would be perfect for a specific use. Is this bad. I dont sell my knives or anything, but a guy did tell me that one of my designs was the most beautiful customs he had ever seen. It wasnt pretty he said he just knew it would to its job nad he would love to be stuck in the woods with it.

tell me how you guys do it.
 
The ugly ones are designed by me. The good looking ones were designed by someone else.
Many times I see a design with a feature I like. I file it away and at some point I include it on a knife.
 
More often than not I just start in with the hacksaw and grinder and see what I end up with.
Other times, I draw pictures trying to incorporate specific things that will make the knife work better. Then change half of it when I start in with the hacksaw and grinder :D
 
I draw a design on paper(I have a background in drawing) Then when i come up with something i like i draw it on the meatl. Then I start cuting away, but if i see something that i dont like when i get to cutting i can adapt it to what looks better and flows better with the knife. I still dont have the eye to make a truly beautiful knife. I am still working on that.
 
It's so damned hard to develop the eye isn't it? Some folks, like Neil Blackwood for instance, seem like they can never miss. Other less gifted souls never quite get there although "perfection" may often seem elusively close. I'm in the latter camp rather than the former but I keep trying. I think most of us get better and better and if you look at stuff you made a year or two ago you'll often cringe because what you're doing now is so much fresher. At least, that's the way it ought to be......:)

A lot of times I sit down with a rough sketch and just sculpt the metal. More and more though, I am starting with a drawing and working it through as best I can and I'm not much of a draftsman. But I get something, then I try to make it. And often when the actual beginning knife is in your hand, you notice things that aren't quite right with the lines or the ergonomics and you start to fiddle with it. Sometimes it makes it better and sometime it doesn't.

Lately, I have been trying to save off patterns that I am happy with in different sizes using my scanner and Photoshop. Then I try to remember to make permanent patterns in G10 for future knives.
 
I always start with a drawing as I come from a design background. If I can draw it I know I can make it or at least figure out how to make it. Also if it looks good on paper it should turn out to be a nice knife. Generaly I design the knife first and then decide what handle material to use. Other times I design a blade to suit a particular piece of stag, or to best show off some exotic handle material. There are benefits to both aproaches and have yet to meet a maker that does it different.

Once I get an idea, I spend about ten minutes on a new design. If it takes much longer and have to force it to work, I know there is something inherently wrong with the idea or design and I scap it. If I believe the idea still has merit I finish the drawing (because I'm stubborn) and file it away even though I know I will not make the knife. Some where down the track I will look at the design and understand what is wrong with it. If not it gets chucked out with all the other uglies I have sorted through. Hours of work down the drain that you don't get paid for!

My finished drawing is always a line drawing and I work exactly to the line as I have already completely refined the design on paper. I use photocopies of the origional as my template. I cut this out and glue it to my steel.

One last thing that may help, you have to make a lot of knives befor you develope a style. Initially just go for it and learn from your mistakes (like the rest of us are still doing) :)
 
....I dont sell my knives or anything, but a guy did tell me that one of my designs was the most beautiful customs he had ever seen..
Click to expand...

The best possible starting point. The design is more difficult to learn than many other skills. It depends on your natural talent a lot. A good eye says which is good, even it is not possible to put into plain clear words.

The knife design is one of the most important things with knifes. I do not mean the process itself, drawing or just thinking and working. I mean the end result.

This question is surprisingly connected to very basic things with humans. For example scientists have experimented with pictures of human faces and bodies. All peoples and races have the same basic idea about the beauty (proprtions between parts of faces or limbs...). The feeling to be beautiful is "a built in machinery in human brains". Surprisingly it is not just a matter of taste, often said.

The balance and curves are important. The blade "weights" roughly optically as much as the handle....
(The physical balance is an other thing. It is a perfection when the physical and optical balance meet each other.). You can affect the optical balance with colors.
The curves should have some natural continuum and transformation gradually (often at least).

The "Golden Section":

One of the first inventions near this topic was the invention of so called "golden section", found everywhere in the nature and repeating itself with (beautiful) human face and limb proportions.

I give an example: To be beatifult a person must (among other things):

Total lengh divided by lenght from ground to navel equals to lenght from ground to navel divided by lenght from navel to head top. Seems tricky?

I say it more precise:
Total lenght of something is x.
Lenght of bigger part is y.
Then golden section means:

x/y= y/(x-y)

(I can't resist the temptation to edit my post to add something (nobody answered yet.)

Why women use high heels? Why they, taking shoes off sometimes walk on tiptoes (I have seen)? Heels are beautiful? No, adding up the height of the heels they get the golden section more near. Legs seem to be in general too short.

You do not believe, take a pile of pictures on streets, measure and calculate. You will be convinced. If the result is that adding up heels we go more distant from golden section in average, I eat my 340 lbs anvil!

I measured one of my knife (not woman!) design and got the result:

totalknife/blade=blade/handle, I mean lenghts.

I did not pre design it this way on purpose, it just did seem to be good.
Well, I feel I design much more better than finalize details with a file.

However, my discussion about the golden section is meant more to be a general level illustration about the rules exsisting as built in machinery in the human brain not one and only important matter with knifes.

I do understand that design only for a practical purpose is different thing than design to be beautful. But if a knife is both it is even better than just to be practical.


pig
 
It depends, if it is a customers design or mine. Majority of my knives are one of a kind. Most of the time I have the design in my mind eye and just grab a piece of Damascus and draw the design on the billet and away I go.
 
Pig,

You've certainly got a way to look at things. I understand what you are saying, just never thought myself capable of formulating such an abstract....

I start with paper and sketch a certain blade type (caper or skinner or hunter...) with varying lengths, curves, guards, handle ends... I probably have a dozen or more sketches that I don't use to every one that I do use. Some of my most questionable designs, those that sit for months or years, end up being the coolest when put on metal and wood.

Dan
 
One of the first inventions near this topic was the invention of so called "golden section", found everywhere in the nature and repeating itself with (beautiful) human face and limb proportions.

Pig, are you sure you aren't German?:footinmou
 
A folder takes much more work to design a Fixed blade You can knock off in 5 minutes or less a folder may take a few hours to get right
 
My closing arguments to an other thread (triple quench............)
Suits here too??
Why, read my earlier post on this thread.


blade.jpg




pig
 
Peter:

Not exactly only a closing argument to an other.....

I did talk on this thread about design and this is my illustration to written text earlier, a match........
A German guy, you remember?

I mean, one picture two usages.
By the way, is it easy to you, peter, make and publish pictures, no recycling needed?

:D..................... :D :D :D :D

Good smilie, tough! Wink, I mean.

pig
 
Phill,
a good link you referred to, I will study it carefully.

Well, I wanted to show one end result here, not design start drawings. For example my idea about "golden section" to be measurable from the photo. I discussed about it in a earlier post on this thread.


The drawing ability is, however, one of the basic abilities needed for a good design to my mind.

In fact where the picture you are drawing (by tool) comes from, the same part of "central nervous system" as drawing ability! (Perhaps you need a hidden drawing ability, not (yet) connected to a pencil, then a tool helps a lot.)

More specific: Many people think that there are mental abilities and hand work abilities, different from each other. To my mind, there is not such a thing as good hand. The control of the hand comes always from the same place as every skill mental or other (different area though). A good hand is a good brain function to control the hand good way. And the first phase of the hand control (drawing for exaple) is to "draw" first on the brain, easy part is to pracise the hand to obey.

Little more. If you have a nice poem, you can write it by handwriting or computer.
The clear picure of a poem comes first.
The ability make poems.
The computer helps a lot (saving, printing, editing).

If you, however, design only for yourself, not communicating with others with drawings, you can draw "internal" only in your mind. Right?



pig
 
Hyva Tuomo!
Nuin sita pitaa! Komia kuva komiasta veitesta.
Terveiset Ranskanmaalta.

Juha
 
Kiitos sajuma,
nama lukijat eivat ole kovin kielitaitoisia mutta minahan tuon ymmarsin. Suomi on helppo kieli oppia, lapsetkin sita puhuu. (Samma pa Svenska.)

Tuntuu tosin, etta ymmartamisvaikeudet eivat johdu foorumilla vain kielesta (katso toista sa"ietta"ni jos haluat nauraa kunnolla, siita kolmesti karkaisusta). :D......:D:D:D

Mitapa sina sinne ranskoihin olet mennyt, merta edemmas kalaan, vai!


sika
 
Oli ihan mielenkiintonen saie se kolomesti kirkastettu 52100 teras ja olishan siita turissu piempaanki mutta tuntuu vahan silta etta se on naita uskonasioita...;)
Taitaa olla paras vaan teha niiku sanalasku sanoo: puhu sie mie pitelen hevosta.

Kommeita veittia sulla siella sivuilla. Mikset oo pannu niita sinne puukkonetin sivuille? Mulla on siella viimevuojen tuotantoa. Ny ei oo ollu aikaa teha enempaa. Mukavaa ku on joku suomalainenki nailla sivuilla tietaa etta etes joku on tayvella jarella kayva, aina ei voi sanua samaa nuista amerikkalaisista.

Ranskaan lahin leivan perassa ja oon ollu taalla vahan paalle 5 vuotta CERNin palakoilla.

Juha
 
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