My First Knife

jwesthurl

jwesthurl

Joined
Sep 17, 2013
Messages
430
Hello everybody,
This has been a really fun experience and I definitely couldn't have gotten this far without the huge amount of knowledge on this forum!
There is a reason everybody tells you to read the stickies!
I also have to give a very special thank you to John Lloyd for his help and time. What an outstanding man and knife maker!
Here are the details:

8 ¾" overall length - 4" blade
⅛" 1095 bar stock with mustard patina
black paper micarta and birdseye maple scales with black and red fiber spacers and red fiber liner
3/16 stainless pins and stainless thong tube
three coats of tru oil and finished with paste wax

There are a few issues with the knife and it still needs to be sharpened but overall I'm very happy with how it turned out.
Let me know your thoughts and how I can improve my next knife.
And now, the photos:





 
Very Impressive!

You have a distal taper, a curved spine, well made plunges, a well shaped and ergonomic handle, and good materials........that is a real feat on a first knife. - Kudos.
 
Excellent job. Especially for your first! I really like what you did with the patina to.:thumbup:
 
Very nice knife overall. Aesthetically pleasing, ergonomic handle shape, very nice choice of good quality materials, and good fit and finish. Well done. It would be very nice for a tenth knife so as a first you did very well.
 
bladsmth said:
Very Impressive!

You have a distal taper, a curved spine, well made plunges, a well shaped and ergonomic handle, and good materials........that is a real feat on a first knife. - Kudos.
Click to expand...

Thank you Stacy! Whether you know it or not, you have also been a huge help in making this knife - especially your how to make a knife tutorial.

jobasha11 said:
Excellent job. Especially for your first! I really like what you did with the patina to.:thumbup:
Click to expand...

Thank you, jobasha11! I was a little worried about how that patina would turn out, but I like it!

Grayzer86 said:
Very nice knife overall. Aesthetically pleasing, ergonomic handle shape, very nice choice of good quality materials, and good fit and finish. Well done. It would be very nice for a tenth knife so as a first you did very well.
Click to expand...

Thank you, Grayzer86!
 
Your first knife is very nice:thumbup: Yeah nicer than my latest knife (35th or 36th by now, if I count correctly). A maybe: a) it might be nicer to keep even space jimping and the last notch end at the plunge line. b) A flatter edge belly. For me, whenever I need to alter the tip/point. I bring the spine down to the edge, preserving the edge profile.
 
That looks really nice you did very well.

One thing this is you broke the back, took the plunge all the way to the spine of the blade, I know some guys do that but for me seeing that small radius of he plunge at the top shows a higher degree of skill.

But you did a fine job
 
bluntcut said:
Your first knife is very nice:thumbup: Yeah nicer than my latest knife (35th or 36th by now, if I count correctly). A maybe: a) it might be nicer to keep even space jimping and the last notch end at the plunge line. b) A flatter edge belly. For me, whenever I need to alter the tip/point. I bring the spine down to the edge, preserving the edge profile.
Click to expand...

Thank you, I think I would reconsider the jimping if I did over again.

AVigil said:
That looks really nice you did very well.

One thing this is you broke the back, took the plunge all the way to the spine of the blade, I know some guys do that but for me seeing that small radius of he plunge at the top shows a higher degree of skill.

But you did a fine job
Click to expand...

Thanks, and I agree with you about the plunge...it did get away from me a little bit.
 
Beautiful knife - much better than my first. The only thing I would change is to carry the black between the wood and the red liner all the way around the scale. That makes it more consistent outlining the scale. Just my opinion, for what it's worth.
Tim
 
Thanks for the compliment. I avoided saying anything beyond the well deserved kudos, but now I will make a few suggestions. These are not things wrong with this knife, just food for thought on the next one.

The only things I would change with the next build is the rivet in the maple might be a bit more aesthetically balanced if it was slightly more forward to mirror the one in the micarta.
I generally make my blade edge sweep more evenly to the tip, but your blunter blade tip shape is perfectly fine. As a hunter it will perform excellent.
On the jimping - what you did was OK, but it might have been a bit more finger friendly and eye pleasing if it was six shallow "U", or ten tiny "V" indents instead of three deep "U"s.

With the talent you show, I would suggest the next knife be the same pattern. Some suggested areas to consider:
Refine the blade shape a bit if you wish ( paper is your friend here).
The handle is great, I wouldn't change much beyond playing with the rivet placement. ( paper is your friend here, too)
File work the spine all the way to the tip with a simple vine pattern, or bramble pattern. These are easy to do and make a huge change in the look of the knife. You can file work only the exposed blade spine, or all the way around the tang.
Make the handle a tad more egg shaped or oval. The bottom looks just right, so either have it a tad fatter at the top ( oovoid) or a tad fatter in the center (oval). When doing this try and round the corners just a tad more. I deliberately used the word "tad" all those times because what you have is almost perfect. Don't change it much. You would be just fine if you told me to stack all those "tads" up and make a "tad-pole" with them...and told me where to stick it :)

I rarely tell someone who just made his first knife that he should start selling them, but if this is an example of the output you will continue to make, I see some good extra income in your future. I also tell new makers not to expect top prices for their early knives, but your knife can stand right in there with most regular knifemakers. I doubt it would sit on a knife show table long priced at $225. It really needs a nice sheath, which would increase the value, too.
No matter what, keep this first knife, you should be very proud of it.
 
tim37a said:
Beautiful knife - much better than my first. The only thing I would change is to carry the black between the wood and the red liner all the way around the scale. That makes it more consistent outlining the scale. Just my opinion, for what it's worth.
Tim
Click to expand...

Thanks Tim, I actually considered doing that under the maple. I think I will use your suggestion on the next one!

bladsmth said:
Thanks for the compliment. I avoided saying anything beyond the well deserved kudos, but now I will make a few suggestions. These are not things wrong with this knife, just food for thought on the next one.

The only things I would change with the next build is the rivet in the maple might be a bit more aesthetically balanced if it was slightly more forward to mirror the one in the micarta.
I generally make my blade edge sweep more evenly to the tip, but your blunter blade tip shape is perfectly fine. As a hunter it will perform excellent.
On the jimping - what you did was OK, but it might have been a bit more finger friendly and eye pleasing if it was six shallow "U", or ten tiny "V" indents instead of three deep "U"s.

With the talent you show, I would suggest the next knife be the same pattern. Some suggested areas to consider:
Refine the blade shape a bit if you wish ( paper is your friend here).
The handle is great, I wouldn't change much beyond playing with the rivet placement. ( paper is your friend here, too)
File work the spine all the way to the tip with a simple vine pattern, or bramble pattern. These are easy to do and make a huge change in the look of the knife. You can file work only the exposed blade spine, or all the way around the tang.
Make the handle a tad more egg shaped or oval. The bottom looks just right, so either have it a tad fatter at the top ( oovoid) or a tad fatter in the center (oval). When doing this try and round the corners just a tad more. I deliberately used the word "tad" all those times because what you have is almost perfect. Don't change it much. You would be just fine if you told me to stack all those "tads" up and make a "tad-pole" with them...and told me where to stick it :)

I rarely tell someone who just made his first knife that he should start selling them, but if this is an example of the output you will continue to make, I see some good extra income in your future. I also tell new makers not to expect top prices for their early knives, but your knife can stand right in there with most regular knifemakers. I doubt it would sit on a knife show table long priced at $225. It really needs a nice sheath, which would increase the value, too. No matter what, keep this first knife, you should be very proud of it.
Click to expand...

Wow, that may be more compliment than I deserve, but I'll take it! And I definitely appreciate the suggestions and critiques from everybody.
I'm already in the process of cutting out the same pattern which I will refine from this knife.
Thank you for the suggestions and encouragement!!
 
That's nice


The only thing I see is that I would want to move that rear pin in the maple back more towards the tong hole to mirror the front pin.

The same but opposite of what Stacy suggested, there are options, sketch them out and play with what you like.
 
69_knives said:
That is a very nice first knife!
Click to expand...

12345678910 said:
That's nice


The only thing I see is that I would want to move that rear pin in the maple back more towards the tong hole to mirror the front pin.

The same but opposite of what Stacy suggested, there are options, sketch them out and play with what you like.
Click to expand...

Perrin said:
Beautiful and inspirational.
Click to expand...

zcd said:
Fantastic effort on this knife, I really like it
Click to expand...

Thank you guys, very much.

zaph1 said:
Very nice. How long did it take you? I expect that the next knife will take much less time than the first.
Click to expand...

Thanks, I didn't really keep track of my time but I'd guess it was probably a minimum of 12-15 hours.
 
I too am very impressed. I agree about pin placement refinement. On a knife like this I like the plunge line to flow with the handle shaping. It doesn't have to be parallel, just a complimentary angle. Do you do your own heat treat or send it out?
 
Willie71 said:
I too am very impressed. I agree about pin placement refinement. On a knife like this I like the plunge line to flow with the handle shaping. It doesn't have to be parallel, just a complimentary angle. Do you do your own heat treat or send it out?
Click to expand...

Thank you, I'm definitely going to refine the pin placement on the next one. I agree on the plunge lines and I actually started a thread about the plunge line angles on this knife! They just got away from me on this one due to my inexperience. Hopefully I'll have a little more control on the next one. As far as heat treat, John Lloyd here on the forums offered and did the heat treat on this one for me. He's is a very kind and generous guy and makes some outstanding knives.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top