My JS Submission knives W.I.P.

stephanfowler

stephanfowler

Joined
Nov 14, 2005
Messages
1,464
So, as you may well know (or not, I mean, seriously)

I will be testing for my Journeyman Smith ranking at the next Blade show here in Atl.

I try to be the type to plan ahead with plenty of time to deal with mishaps so I decided to get started on the knives I will submit for testing.

My plan (yea, right) is to make 8 knives and send them to several Master Smiths for input and suggestions.

I got four of them forged out yesterday and today, all from Don Hanson's W2 (interesting future note, all of my JS knives will be from the same 2 1/8" bar of W2)

Pictures of the first four, ready for HT
js-test-01.jpg
 
Excellent plan.
Will you be finishing one, and having it critiqued before finishing
the second...etc..?
 
Russ Andrews said:
Excellent plan.
Will you be finishing one, and having it critiqued before finishing
the second...etc..?
Click to expand...

Actually I'll finish these four, and while their getting checked over I will work on the other four.

It's a good bit more work for me but I'm confident that it will be a advantage to my personal demeanor come testing day (I'll freak out less. I hope)


:o:o
 
Good plan.

If I may offer a suggestion -- If you are going to mail them to Mastersmiths to be critiqued, take photos of each knife from both sides and also from the bottom of the ricasso and down from the spine. Print photos on type paper - 1 photo per page. Ask the Mastersmith to write on the pages and draw arrows to the areas that need work.

I did this for my JS knives and it worked very well. A picture will save the Mastersmith a thousand words.

Brian
 
BrianThie said:
Good plan.

If I may offer a suggestion -- If you are going to mail them to Mastersmiths to be critiqued, take photos of each knife from both sides and also from the bottom of the ricasso and down from the spine. Print photos on type paper - 1 photo per page. Ask the Mastersmith to write on the pages and draw arrows to the areas that need work.

I did this for my JS knives and it worked very well. A picture will save the Mastersmith a thousand words.

Brian
Click to expand...

awesome suggestion. I'll do that
 
Good plan. I look forward to seeing more of the knives here and the final selections in Atlanta.

Roger
 
Russ Andrews said:
Excellent plan.
Will you be finishing one, and having it critiqued before finishing
the second...etc..?
Click to expand...

stephanfowler said:
Actually I'll finish these four, and while their getting checked over I will work on the other four.

It's a good bit more work for me but I'm confident that it will be a advantage to my personal demeanor come testing day (I'll freak out less. I hope)

:o:o
Click to expand...

I believe I see where Russ was going with his question as there could be a benefit in completing your knives individually and sending them off to the mastersmiths as finished. This could allow you to incorporate any critique and/or advice into your latter knives. Otherwise you may be finished with your knives before receiving feed back. Just a thought.
 
Stephan your off to a good start. Hear is my two cents build the knives but do not glue them up until after you have showed then to an MS this way you can still fix the things that you did not catch. I had all mine done and looked at then, one at a time, about two weeks before the show I glued them all up. I would also say to breakup your designs, do a full tang. Do a frame out, show that you can do more then one type of construction. As I know you can. good luck and I will see you at Blade.
 
Here's the first one done,

8.75" Blade
Stabilized Maple Burl Handle
Stainless Single guard

I tried to show as much detail in the photos as possible

campbowie-01.jpg


campbowie-02.jpg


campbowie-03.jpg


campbowie-04.jpg


campbowie-05.jpg


campbowie-06.jpg


campbowie-07.jpg


campbowie-08.jpg


campbowie-09.jpg


campbowie-10.jpg
 
the knife has a uniqueness about it which all your knives have. This is a good sign of good things to come.:)
Looks like a real quality build.:thumbup:
 
Stephan,
When I saw the group shot of your blades, my eye went to that very one. I thought "camp knife!!" You did good.:thumbup:

I've been watching your work and love to see your enthusiasm for getting things "right". Your willingness to cover all the bases will certainly add to your anticipated success. From the photos, it looks like you wont have any problems. I look forward to seeing the reast of your test knives. Lin
 
I have the utmost confidence that you will do fine!

You make some truly phenominal blades which one day I will hopefully be able to add one to my not yet started collection!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top