Nasty features

Someday I may be rich and famous enough to stop bidding on and accepting orders that might not be exactly my cup of tea. Until then, I have a family to feed and enjoy a challenge.

I don't feel any personal guilt from making a fighting knife, regardless. The folks I deal with are extremely unlikely to be gangsters or armed burglars.

I compare it to a gunsmith... there's a big difference market-wise between a highly tuned Kimber and a Saturday Night Special.
 
Just watch D-gaurds in New York State, Brass knuckles are banned specifically in the New York weapon laws, as are sword canes, shiriken, billy clubs, pilum ballistic knives, nunchucks, and a bunch of other fun toys

-Page
 
I generally don't go for nasty toys any more. I think at some stage you outgrow them... mostly. Maybe that's the first sign of male menopause.

Anyway, I was young once and owned a bunch of them, so I surely understand the appeal, even if I don't often feel it any more.

In some ways we never outgrow ourselves... there will always be room in my collection for some nasty things. Just less and less room as time goes by. ;)

- Greg
 
I am very much a "usable" knife type. I like to look at all types of knives, but if they are not something I could use in my day to day life I leave them sitting in the store or on the makers bench. What I make myself follows that same philosophy, bushcraft styles , skinners, EDC drop points, and Bowies are all I have made. I know the Bowie is more of a fighting knife, but it also makes a great camp knife.

Even if I were to buy a collectable knife that would just sit in a display stand it would still have to be something along the lines of what I would make.
 
This politically correct nonsense needs to end.

A sword has only one purpose, and it ain't cuttin firewood. Some people have problems with that. They need to get over it. The fate of nations once depended on swords and the grim men that used them.


Edited to add: I realize that comes across as harsh. It is not my intention to offend my fellow craftsmen, nor to criticize anyone who has posted to this thread.
 
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12345678910 said:
TrenchKnife1.JPG

I had a chance to buy a WW2 trench spike, but in Canada the brass knuckles rules prohibit that and D guards.

Be careful with where you and your customers are, your laws are twitchy and vary for every state.
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That's WW1 btw

It's a shame that more and more stuff gets banned because e few can't behave.
One hand opening locking folders are outlawed here because a few young gangster-wannabees carried them.
 
Hengelo_77 said:
That's WW1 btw

It's a shame that more and more stuff gets banned because e few can't behave.
One hand opening locking folders are outlawed here because a few young gangster-wannabees carried them.
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Yes, you are right, I remember it as a "1917 trench spike" & that's WW1


It is a shame
& Laws are funny
Would you believe I can have a cane sword in Canada if the blade is OVER 12"
11" bad, 13" ok....

but no punch daggers or balisongs or D guard Bowies....
 
GHEzell said:
This politically correct nonsense needs to end.

A sword has only one purpose, and it ain't cuttin firewood. Some people have problems with that. They need to get over it. The fate of nations once depended on swords and the grim men that used them.
Click to expand...

I'll get a little harsh myself. This is about what I want to make personally, not anyone else:

I have no objection to making weapons with practical features but strongly dislike unusable objects
with lots of sharp points that would be desired only by mall ninjas and the worst of Hollywood directors.

Of course, given the state of modern weaponry, most practical features in modern combat knives
have more to do with maximum durability with minimum weight than they do with actual combat.

Historical weapons offer more creative freedom. In this case I widen the definition of "historical"
to include blades that could well have been designed and used in various periods but didn't
happen to be as well as actual replica weapons.

When I get better I expect to make more of this sort of stuff along with kitchen knives.

I will note that learning a little bit about making knives has made me appreciate the skills, if not
the taste, of famous makers of "the more points the better" school. I'd certainly be afraid to
get within 10 feet of a grinder with some of those objects!
 
I have no qualms with nasty stuff , if they work so be it and this whole knife fighting thing is a lot of bs . I have seen a person get stabbed in the throat with a $5 steak knife on the street and live in a city with the highest homicide rate which are 90% " knife , shank , screwdriver " related . These people who committed these assaults and murders didn't do it with tacticool knives or bowies or fighting knives . It was kitchen knives , cheap $20 blades and such that did it . I also have formal training in knife fighting, bayonet fighting techniques and hand to hand combat. I taught 100's of new to be Infantrymen basic Bayonet and Knife fighting skills . I also took a very hard to get and intensive and challenging course to be a Close Quarter Combat Instructor. Which ranges from the physiological aspects to legal continuum levels of forces, ground fighting, hand to hand striking, pressure points , joint manipulation , OC spray , handcuffing, knife and baton etc. Out of a class of 12 only 6 passed , I am in no way a master of any of these skills like some masters of martial arts . But when I taught knife fighting , disarmament techniques , bayonet, sentry removal etc the first thing I told a class was . Try to at all times avoid getting in a knife fight , if you do get in one be prepared to get cut , where you get cut will be the difference between surviving the encounter. All these articles in Tactical Knives with old men with mean faces doing complicated parry and attacks a malarkey. Angles of attack, what you allow your adversary to cut and your attack or counter will determine the outcome. Slice , don't stab , go for the weapon ie cut the arm or go for the red zone . Let them cut your non vital to allow you to cut there red zone . Don't attempt to disarm a knife or gun unless it's a last resort . These simple things are way more important then all this knife fighting crap out there.As for the banning of nasty knives it's all about public perception , hype and fear tactics . Not many good knives or customs are used to commit crimes or nasty's either. Facts are facts. End rant.
 
Back to the original question, sort-of.

There is a school of thought that says that art can (or should) have no functional purpose. By this reasoning an otherwise knife shaped object that is useless as a knife is art. Of course a pointed thing that can't cut but can still stab has utility, so if you make your spiky thing out of rubber, then it's definitely art...

Seriously though, make what you want...that's really what art is all about IMO...making to the best of the maker's abilities that which pleases the maker. With luck someone else will like what has been made and the artist can make a living. If it's not legal to sell, don't sell it. If it's not legal to keep, cut it up and re-purpose the bits for some "art as social commentary" or something.
 
"Nasty" can be just fine if well executed. The problem is that oft times "nasty" is riding in the same car as "ugly"and "silly" Kick those two other guys to the curb and you will be okay, IMO. ;)
 
That works fine for fine arts, but for applied arts, the thing had better, well, apply. LOL. People and firms like Ferrari, Tiffany, Bang and Olufsen, Patek Phillipe, Frank Lloyd Wright, Baccarat, Wedgewood and lest we forget a bunch of Anglo-American furniture makers and Chinese pottters from a couple of hundred years back have done a magnificent job of creating pieces of art than can be used and used quite well at that.
Mahoney said:
Back to the original question, sort-of.

There is a school of thought that says that art can (or should) have no functional purpose. By this reasoning an otherwise knife shaped object that is useless as a knife is art. Of course a pointed thing that can't cut but can still stab has utility, so if you make your spiky thing out of rubber, then it's definitely art...

Seriously though, make what you want...that's really what art is all about IMO...making to the best of the maker's abilities that which pleases the maker. With luck someone else will like what has been made and the artist can make a living. If it's not legal to sell, don't sell it. If it's not legal to keep, cut it up and re-purpose the bits for some "art as social commentary" or something.
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If it's useful, it's a tool. Artful tools are doubly nice.

If it's not useful... bleh.

Annnnnd here we go into the downward spiral of the whole "art" thing again... sorry about that :o
 
Well, it's probably a good thing that we have these cyclic debates. People who weren't involved before will find this to be their first chance to see how people think about it.

I think it's a classic guy response to blow off art and pick functionality over form. My wife worked at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston and forced me to undergo a cultural awakening. :)

- Greg
 
Make what you want to make, I say, but in the world we live in it might be worth considering who you sell it to. Legal and moral issues should not affect the artistic process, but when you turn art into a business you might want to take these things into consideration.
 
Blades in the rawest form to me are primal. I have will and enjoy making blades that look like there made for skinning hobbits. Make what inspires you. For me making, is about exploring one's imagination.
It is supposed to be fun right. Legalities take the fun out of everything
 
I was checking out the architecture and design collection on the Museum of Modern Art website. They only have a handful of non-culinary knives listed in the permanent collection, but among those select few are two by Bo Randall. What I found intersting is that neither of them were traditional Randalls likethe Model 1 or more famous ones like the Mercury astronaut knife, but ones with what we might call "nasty" features. One is the Model 18 Attack/Survival (hollow handle and saw teeth) and the other the Model 9 throwing knife. I guess that the curators of MOMA figured that old Bo was one of those guys who put the funk in functional and they went with the funkiest models that he was making when the knives were put into the collection in the 60's. .:D
 
I definitely see where Sam is coming from. I normally make hunting, EDC utility, and kitchen knives. I've never even made what I would consider a "tactical knife." For some reason, though, I've always wanted to make one of those two-bladed, twirly things that Chavez y Chavez used to cut Arkansas Dave Rutebaugh in Young Guns II.
 
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