Many thanks to everyone who has left a comment, it really has made my day
Chui 888 photos really do my work justice, for which i am eternally grateful!!
I was asked in an earlier post by Jack Black to say something about my background and how i got into making slip joints, so here goes------------
As a teenage lad, i was lucky and grew up in the country side, and spent all my time in the woods and fields with my trusty BSA Airgun shooting rabbits and pigeons for local farmers. The only knife i had was my Grand dads sheath knife from when he was a boy scout in the 1930`s and an old ex army slip joint. Both of which i still have.
Upon leaving school i got an apprenticeship in an Art Foundry called Morris Singers. This company had been around for 100 years and made sculptures to be seen all over the world, including the Bronze lions in Trafalgar Square.
I stayed with the company for 8 years and was taught the value of making and using hand tools to a very high standard, something which held me in good stead for knife making!
I stayed in the foundry business making Bronze sculpture for a further 22 years, finally culminating in part owning a foundry.
A friend of mine at my local gun club (I shot competition 10m air pistol) quite out of the blue asked me if i wanted to see his collection of knives, i had never seen anything like it! His whole house was full of them. Every draw, cupboard and room was over flowing, even his wife`s dressing table drawer had some sneaked in, i am not joking!
Knowing my work background he said for someone with my skills and eye for detail, i should make a knife, so that is what i did.
I got hold of a copy of the Loveless book and got started, or so i thought! My early attempts where all fixed blades, made from old files, god they where crude!
I had no grinder only files, and they took ages to make, but i was well and truly hooked! This was around 2009 and continued to make them after hours at work when every body had gone home. As if i did not have enough to do already!!
In November 2011 the phone rang late at night, it was our business partner with bad news, the Foundry and the entire trading estate was up in flames, we had lost everything. Not the sought of thing you need at 11 o`clock at night!
After 30 years in the same job, i had had enough. All my tools which i had made over the years, which i shall never replace were gone and it was time for a change.
Our business partner bought us out as he wanted to carry on in a new building payed for by the insurance company.
It was the first time i didnt have to go to work, so thought what else can i do?
I found my old slip joint, just by chance at the back of a drawer, and opened it for the first time in years, that was it, like a light bulb going off, i was going to make these!
I read everything i could, scoured the net for clues and in 2013 made my first pocket knife.
Since then i have not stopped, and it has become my full time job/passion. Its quite ironic the way things turn out. My Grand dad who gave me the sheath knife, came from Sheffield, and used to call me a "little mester" when i was child, i think he must be smiling down on me!
All the best
Paul
