Magnus Axelson WiP

To me, there is a complete thought and style represented in your original drawing. It is lost in the later incarnations. why the need to change and compromise?
David
 
2knife said:
To me, there is a complete thought and style represented in your original drawing. It is lost in the later incarnations. why the need to change and compromise?
David
Click to expand...

I tend to agree with this a bit. I strongly prefer no guard and am glad you came to that decision. But I find the newer drawings a little distracting and I think your original will serve best in terms of functionality. I would remove the filework on the spine as I can see gunk getting in there after heavy use, which will need to be cleaned out. I think Magnus does art knives, and your original drawing is the most practical.
 
gentlemen, thank you kindly for sharing your thoughts!
I like it when peeps give honest feedback in this forum.

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Magnus is connected when it comes to steel production in Sweden. As a result of this, he was able to get into Damasteel's production facility and forge out the stainless damascus himself.

This is a burly billet, whose offcuts spawned other fantastic Axelson creations;

 
this stuff is all pretty straight foward, tracing out the pattern from a paper template...




cutting the profile out of the billet...




and roughing in the hollow grind;



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As you can see, we decided against a cut out choil. Personally, I don't care for them most of the time. For a hard use knife, they can become a stress riser. Also, with today's steel options, resharpening usually means steeling the edge as opposed to removing a bunch of material. On this knife, I will likely never need to reestablish the edge bevel especially near the ricasso. Visually, I think most of the time a choil kind of kills the flow of the lines.
 
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forward looking. I think John Gonzalez has a somewhat similar thinking model too. Can't wait to see how this is finished. The choice of damascus is perfect ;)
 
I was working on trail all day yesterday, sorry for not updating- I was just too damn tired.
Will have more pretty pictures for you a little later today :)
 
In the following pics, Magnus is establishing flat ground forward portion of the blade;

initial flat grind;



blending the grindlines by hand;




The idea with the flat ground portion is that minimal material will be removed initially, and as more is removed it will be as gradually steeper bevels which will be blended together forming a convex surface.

I specified to Magnus that I would like steep secondary bevels at about 20 degrees so that I could adjust the final geometry myself. I always strive to find the sweet spot between a shoulder wide enough to break chips out and not stick, but not so wide that the blade won't pass through lighter/spindlier materials.

When designing the knife, I had thought quite a lot about what a hatchet is good for, and took those attributes to apply them to this knife. The trick was to design it so it looked like a knife, not a hatchet. A hatchet is another project altogether, and it is also coming along nicely ;)



***

Here, Magnus is getting his freak on. The sharpie has been unleashed, and the files are ready for action!



Stay tuned :)
 
2knife said:
To me, there is a complete thought and style represented in your original drawing. It is lost in the later incarnations. why the need to change and compromise?
David
Click to expand...

hey David, you raise a great point.

For me, I tend to place a very high value on compromise and change- both of which are almost dirty words in today's culture. I do not believe in my own exceptionalism, but rather tend to see us all as components of a single chain of existence. No man is an island, and so forth. To that end, what thrills me the most about life is not necessarily seeing my own, special contribution to the world of Man, but rather my collaborative contribution to things greater than I can generate myself.

It sounds kind of cheezy, and maybe it is. But I know that almost anything of value to me in the world is the result of compromise, collaboration and change, and so these things are always at the forefront of my mind.

And such was my approach to this piece. I knew before I started to sketch it, that Magnus would be the person turning it into reality, and to that end, it is fundamentally imbued with qualities and approaches that I know, or think of, Magnus to epitomize. Knowing this, and being open and accepting of change, I fully expected him to collaborate on the design itself- and to me there is no greater honour than to see my ideas, not just embraced but stimulating new ideas in the mind of the maker.

There might come a time where this pattern will be fed into Autocad, waterjet blanked and made in a batch. It may or may not, at that point, include some of the things that Magnus changed. I may never know; this might be the only one. But, it's a hell of a prototype! But better than that, it's a unique work of art that I had a hand in creating.

And not only that, I have a little piece of the spirit of my friend from Sweden. A spirit that I am so lucky to collaborate with, not many people get that opportunity. :)
 
Thanks for the explanation Lorien. I can understand your points and the value you place on collaboration. To the observer, the original looks tremendous!

May i ask the purpose of the bevel? And does it act as a stress riser,.. To me it looks like you could achieve the same result without the bevel. Ed Fowler has a name for the complex grind like this, but with a more contoured and less sudden transition , his "modified price" grind. Thicker at top, more flat ground and thinner toward the ricasso. Gives the blade greater flex strength too. The same idea, it looks like.. But yours is taking a step further with the hollow grind. To me it looks like the bevel itself might act as a wedge.. I dont know from experience on that..
David
 
WOW Lorien, that is a wonderful design and it looks like it will be incredible. I look forward to watching this come to fruition. BTW, you have a great outlook on life.
 
2knife said:
Thanks for the explanation Lorien. I can understand your points and the value you place on collaboration. To the observer, the original looks tremendous!

May i ask the purpose of the bevel? And does it act as a stress riser,.. To me it looks like you could achieve the same result without the bevel. Ed Fowler has a name for the complex grind like this, but with a more contoured and less sudden transition , his "modified price" grind. Thicker at top, more flat ground and thinner toward the ricasso. Gives the blade greater flex strength too. The same idea, it looks like.. But yours is taking a step further with the hollow grind. To me it looks like the bevel itself might act as a wedge.. I dont know from experience on that..
David
Click to expand...

thank you David. Your kind words mean a lot to me :)

As for the hollow ground bevel. Firstly, it may in fact act as something of a stress riser, and that was in my thoughts from the outset.

I was thinking that using a very thick stock for the knife, (8mm or .315") would address this in a couple of ways; the blade is full thickness to just forward of the hollow ground bevel, so all the material between the spine and the top of the bevel would give the rigidity necessary to ensure reliability over time. I placed the grind up as high as I felt comfortable with in this regard, but I could have spec'd the hollow grind to go all the way to the spine.

In additon to weight distribution, the other factor that entered the consideration process was the function of the hollow ground section. In addition to it allowing for a more acute edge than the forward section, it's been left thick enough and the secondary bevels steep enough that the area will function as a draw knife. By laying the blade on its side against the material being draw cut, the shoulder at the top of the grind and the edge both contact the material. If I'm using the knife to peel bark off some timber, that section of the blade automatically places the edge bevel flat against the surface, keeping the edge from biting into the wood.

Building a sheath for the forward portion of the blade is on my list of things to do, so that the knife can be used with greater safety as a draw knife.

As for the Ed Fowler modified price grind you mentioned, that sounds like a good way to go. Most of the Bladesports competition knives utilize something along those lines, and if they're using it it definitely has merit.

And hey, ArchAngel, thank you. I like to think that my outlook on life is just serious enough to get by, but not so serious as to make me miserable. It's working pretty good so far :)
 
Magnus' filework is always so interesting, tasteful and flawless.

While the pattern I developed did not include embellishment, it's not because I don't like it, truth is, it's kind of beyond my skillset. Working with Magnus on this knife, however, has given me cause and inspiration to start studying the practice more carefully and add it to future efforts.

There may or may not be a functional angle to the filework that Magnus added here, but I sure do like what he came up with!



 
I love the way Magnus filed the titanium screws for this project. To me, they have kind of a bicycle related look.
Also glad we opted for a nice, light colored handle material. This is ivory micarta.





In a surprise move, Magnus chose stabilized spalted wood, (might be birch) for the forward part of the handle. I really like the look of this material, especially the way it complements and contrasts with the ivory micarta. Don't mistake the wood for a bolster; the handle components don't actually touch each other.




Screw holes have been reamed, tapped and the scale materials countersunk. Next steps coming soon...

 
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Some self explanatory progress shots;














 
someone had to say it :)
 
This is going to be spectacular. Can't wait to see the finished blade (and sheath!)
 
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