After almost two years of lurking in knife forums absorbing as much as I could, I finally made my first knives this past weekend. I attended Herb Derr's Hand Forged Cutlery class at Cedar Lakes in West Virginia. The first knife I made is the railroad spike knife. The next three are made from hay rake tines. We finished up with a knife forged from O1 bar stock. I'm pretty proud of my hollow grind on this one, although it's not perfect. I left the edge a bit too thick so it's not the best cutter, but at least I learned something from it. I was thinking about putting a patina on it with cold blue and bleach, but I'm worried that the coarse grit of the finish might not work well with the bleach patina. Does anyone have any ideas about a guard and handle?
Any constructive criticism would also be appreciated.
Any constructive criticism would also be appreciated.
, for decades. 