- Joined
- Feb 28, 2007
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Yesterday I had the pleasure of hangn with Rick Marchand, aka, Magnussen, to watch him forge a blade and takes some pics of the process. For those of you who dont know him, Rick is the owner of Wildertools (www.wildertools.com) and he spends his share of time here in W&SS. In the chat room he is known as that bad ass, bare knuckle fighter/maker. Why Talfuchre continues to goad him on I dont know Rick has these huge forearms and I can tell he just loves to choke his opponents out. He even has his tattoos strategically placed on his forearms to provide reading material for his victims as they lose consciousness.
Oh well, fortunately I wasnt facing his snarling visage in a ring. Just watching him put on his makers hat and teachers stance. Rick gave me a full tour of his workshop and leather shop. His work progresses in different spots in his house; his leather area is down stairs and his forge area is in the garage. Apart from some of the grinding tools, Ricks work is all hand made. He even designed some of his own smithing tools. All of his blades a forged by him. His leatherwork is all hand stitched and his description of it and demonstration of methods he uses makes it sound like a tortuous process. I think it is fair to say that Rick is one of the few guys who put an equal amount of effort into both blade and sheath. In fact, I think he said that his leatherwork often takes a bit more time than the knives he produces. In addition to sheaths, Rick also makes other leather articles including back packs, various outdoor pouches as well as his infamous wool anoraks. Hes just a busy guy and I think only acting on about 1/8th of his ambitions. A family man and father of two young children, he has to temper his time a bit I suppose.
Okay, while I was there Rick decided to show me how he forages his Striker Knife, called the Strife. It is one of the pieces found in his high end fire kits like his Bows Firepouch. The Strife knife can also be purchased stand alone from his website. The Strife is made out of a file (W1 or 1095 depending on the file he uses) and fully hardened for use as a flint striker with the traditional flint and steel fire making techniques. It sports a nice little edge and folded handle to double as a small kit knife. It is actually quite comfy in the hand with a two finger grip and an ~0.5 edge that readily push cuts paper. Finally, the different parts of the spine or handle edge can be used as a ferro rod or firesteel striker. I am happy to say that I started a fire using both flint and steel with the Strife as the flint striker as well as lighting up a little jute bundle with a LMF ferro rod using the strife as the ferro rod striker.
So onto the process of foraging the Strife. Actually Rick gave me a choice of things I could watch him do and the Strife was the first thing to come to mind. Here on his work table he had some different materials to work with, a couple of blades in process, a file and a block of steel. The file on the table here is the one he used for the strife.
Firing up the forge...
You can see him hammering away and working at the extended tip of the file which he uses primarily for the strife.
After several cycles of heating and hammering and drawing out the point to the shape he wants, he marks the piece off for cutting with some chalk.
Here is his cutting block, a piece of steel girder with a sharpened section that he uses to score the piece to be cut. He scores it on a couple of sides, heats again and works the cut with plyers.
Oh well, fortunately I wasnt facing his snarling visage in a ring. Just watching him put on his makers hat and teachers stance. Rick gave me a full tour of his workshop and leather shop. His work progresses in different spots in his house; his leather area is down stairs and his forge area is in the garage. Apart from some of the grinding tools, Ricks work is all hand made. He even designed some of his own smithing tools. All of his blades a forged by him. His leatherwork is all hand stitched and his description of it and demonstration of methods he uses makes it sound like a tortuous process. I think it is fair to say that Rick is one of the few guys who put an equal amount of effort into both blade and sheath. In fact, I think he said that his leatherwork often takes a bit more time than the knives he produces. In addition to sheaths, Rick also makes other leather articles including back packs, various outdoor pouches as well as his infamous wool anoraks. Hes just a busy guy and I think only acting on about 1/8th of his ambitions. A family man and father of two young children, he has to temper his time a bit I suppose.
Okay, while I was there Rick decided to show me how he forages his Striker Knife, called the Strife. It is one of the pieces found in his high end fire kits like his Bows Firepouch. The Strife knife can also be purchased stand alone from his website. The Strife is made out of a file (W1 or 1095 depending on the file he uses) and fully hardened for use as a flint striker with the traditional flint and steel fire making techniques. It sports a nice little edge and folded handle to double as a small kit knife. It is actually quite comfy in the hand with a two finger grip and an ~0.5 edge that readily push cuts paper. Finally, the different parts of the spine or handle edge can be used as a ferro rod or firesteel striker. I am happy to say that I started a fire using both flint and steel with the Strife as the flint striker as well as lighting up a little jute bundle with a LMF ferro rod using the strife as the ferro rod striker.
So onto the process of foraging the Strife. Actually Rick gave me a choice of things I could watch him do and the Strife was the first thing to come to mind. Here on his work table he had some different materials to work with, a couple of blades in process, a file and a block of steel. The file on the table here is the one he used for the strife.
Firing up the forge...
You can see him hammering away and working at the extended tip of the file which he uses primarily for the strife.
After several cycles of heating and hammering and drawing out the point to the shape he wants, he marks the piece off for cutting with some chalk.
Here is his cutting block, a piece of steel girder with a sharpened section that he uses to score the piece to be cut. He scores it on a couple of sides, heats again and works the cut with plyers.
