Need Input Criticism For New Knife Design From New WannaBe Knife Maker

Here are my thoughts,

You have already gotten good advice regarding adding a bit of curvature to the spine and handle. And I too feel that the divot on top is detracting from the flow of the knife. If you are going to skeletonize the handle take a closer look at the handle frame just below the dip. You have a very weak area there and some adjustment will be necessary because you have the dip running right into cutouts. 1/8" is pretty strong in a full tang design. If you are going to cut out as much of the tang as possible you aren't going to have much steel left under the handle scales. Your drawing has your plunge line running straight off the top at the spine. I would try to get a radius at the top of the plunge line and blend it into the side of the blade. A quick look at some of the knives others have posted in other threads will illustrate that well. As far as drawing goes, if CAD is your strength then by all means use it to your best advantage. However, drawing with pencil and paper is a more direct conduit to your mind's eye. If you sketch by hand you will naturally get a more organic feel because your hand knows what your vision is for the design and you can feel it through your fingertips as you draw it. If you have to make revisions to get it worked out that's ok. Also, if you are making these designs with sales in mind you will have to consider the feedback you've gotten about the finger scallops. End users will probably use it in various orientations and scallops may not be optimal. But if the design is for you make it any way you want if it works for you.
 
madupree said:
Talking about the arc of the spine, just so that I'm clearly understanding, you're suggesting that the blade be set on one arc and the handle portion be set on a separate arc? Basically the entire length of the knife from tip to but would have 2 separate arcs in the design? Basic concept of how I was taught in elementary to draw birds......in a nutshell?
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No, not exactly. I like for the spine of the knife (by this I mean from pommel to tip, top of the knife if looking at it in profile) to have a gentle curve. It could all be one radius, ie a section of a really big circle. But I think that the curvature looks best if the radius increases and/or decreases some along the length. So that it would be part of an oval or ellipse instead. I'm sorry for the confusing terms and I'm not sure that I'm using them correctly or efficiently. So let me try another approach. When I draw a design, I start with the spine as my first line on the paper and "build" the rest of the design from there. When I first started, I took a straight edge and made a straight line for the spine. That didn't look so good and was advised as such. So next I made a cardboard template and used a very large circle (20' or 30' diameter). That gave a nice uniform curve but still wasn't quite what I was looking for. Next I used a large plastic serving bowl and would squish the curve of the rim to my desired curve. Was difficult and could have used a third hand to accomplish, however it was more the type of curve I was looking for. Since then I have settled on some 3/8" wooden dowels that I have bent into various curves. The curve is not uniform, instead it has a tighter radius at one end and a bigger radius at the other end. I have several that I chose from but I have one favorite "drawin' stick" that seems to have exactly the right amount of bend on the handle end and I just erase back as far as I need on the tip end. That end depends on what the tip will be; clip point, drop point, spear point, straight point, or trailing point. For a drop point I find the section of my large french curve that best suits the spine and amount I want the tip to dip. Sometime it looks best using the small end of the french curve that is an increasing radius while other times it looks best using the big end which is a decreasing or tightening radius. Point being is that the curvature of the spine as a whole is not a constant arc. Hope this is a good explanation and not as cumbersome as it seems while typing it. Please keep in mind, this is just my personal taste and the more I learn, the more I realize that like skinning a cat, there are many ways to design a knife.
 
I agree with the others on what they have said and #5 being the best shown. I would also echo Perrin almost word for word on what he has said. About adding curvature, look at the whole thing like a french curve in that it is always changing. My own drawings improved 10 fold when I started using french curves.
Back to your knife, remove the straight line on the spine as has been suggested, this should also drop the tip as was also suggested. I would also lengthen the belly getting rid of most of that straight line as well.
Good luck,
Chris
 
'Pulls out knife lingo dictionary'...... I am taking all this in, need to do research on all these inputs of knife parts more
 
That's a pretty good picture denoting the parts of a knife. My only additions would be that the butt is the same as "pommel end", would leave the finger guard off the diagram, and the bolster depicted is an integral bolster meaning that it is of the same piece of steel as the blade. Many bolsters are separate pieces pinned or otherwise attached to the tang much like handle scales are but between the ricasso and the scales. They are usually metal and functionally add strength to a traditionally weak part of the knife handle. They also can help protect a delicate handle material that chips or gouges easily like stone, fossil coral or wood. I really like the traditional look of brass bolsters front and back with some really gnarly stag scales in between. Visually they break up the length of the handle area and provide extra eye candy. Integral bolsters are usually the realm of the hammer and anvil forging crowd since they have more latitude to shape all three dimensions of a knife than stock removal only construction allows. One part not depicted is the aforementioned ricasso, which is the area between the plunge line or bevel if plunge lineless and the handle area. The integral bolster occupies the ricasso area on the pictured chef knife. There are more like a guard, finger choil (that one is often debated), spanish notch, pommel, belly, quillon, cheek...

If you aren't using the blade forums specific search engine then you can find it in the stickies at the top of this sub-forum. It is a great resource and only searches Bladeforums. Still plenty of results to sort through but at least most of it is about knives.
 
madupree said:
'Pulls out knife lingo dictionary'...... I am taking all this in, need to do research on all these inputs of knife parts more
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Your picture is pretty good. Here are a few examples of some other kinds of knives you might see. There are many types of knives and no chart will cover the names of all the parts of all those types of knives. There are multiple terms for some parts and some disagreement on what to call other parts. But you will get the basic idea. Just describe parts you mean the best you can and people will understand you.

 
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I should have some different designs up today with a slight arc incorporated into the length of the spine
 
madupree said:
I should have some different designs up today with a slight arc incorporated into the length of the spine
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Here's a redesign of the 5th design. I really like that design and i think that's the one i'm going to lean towards mostly. I got rid of the thumb divot, i added a smooth flowing radius across the whole spine and got rid of the multiple finger grooves and just left the index finger groove. I also took out the cutouts for lightening the handle to avoid criticism on something that's going t have a lot of variance until final production
 
I also changed either the Choil or the Quillon area ( not really sure which it would be) any input as to what to classify that area would be great.........oh and i dropped the drop point of the blade another 1/8"
 
I took some advice and found a DWG file of a French Curve and utilized that in the index finger divot area.........getting better???? OPINIONS ANYONE!!!

 
15312499103_37c8765251_c.jpg
[/url]Design1_mod by Wjkrywko, on Flickr[/IMG]

This is a gentle curve. This would be very comfortable in use.
 
madupree said:
i think that might be getting away from the whole drop point blade type i'm wanting to stick with..........
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Actually what he is showing is a drop point. The design is so it feel better in the hand while skinning.

That flat back on a blade get tiresome after some use because it is does not fit natural in the hand.

Here is a blank I just profiled which is kinda what he is showing.

You will see this time and again on certain knives because it came to be with field experience.

I mean you can have straight lines on a knife, but it seems with experience makers tend to add a bit of curve as time goes on.


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i get it now, i always thought a drop point would just drop right before the tip, not the entire blade would have a drop to it.........i'll mess around with that design a little bit now that i've seen one made.
 
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