Please critique

S

Steve Beckwith

Joined
May 29, 2004
Messages
399
The blade is 3/16" 1084 from Aldo, the wood is Ipe, blade length is 7 5/8", over all length 12 7/8", brass fittings, spacers are black fiber and thin brown micarta. I would appreciate some feed back regarding proportion as well as over all design. Thanx, Steve B
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Very nice looking knife. Grinds look good and so does the finish. I prefer the ricasso and blade to be close to the same width but that's just cosmetic. If I was going to do it like you have it, I would make the ricasso a little shorter so your stamp is centered but I'm just being picky. I like it a lot bud. Great job!
 
I had to put the logo at the widest part of the ricasso because it is the shortest template that I have. As it is, it barely fits. Thanks for the comments.
 
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The ricasso is too long, but otherwise, the knife is superb. Some folks like the ricasso long, but I feel it should be a rectangle, not square. Workmanship looks excellent.
 
I agree with the others. My eye likes a shorter ricasso. I tend to like more traditional proportions for daggers with the blade length being about twice the length of the handle. But yours is more of a modern combat dagger style I think and the overall proportions you have look good. Symmetry, fit and finish look very good. Nice piece.
 
The fact that the logo barely fits on the ricasso makes it look like that area just wasn't planned out. A shorter, wider ricasso would fix that and the length issue others are seeing. Everything else looks great.
 
Aside from what others said I kind of feel like it might look better with a more exotic, figured wood. It definitely is deserving of it
 
Actually, the ricasso wasn't like this when I finished the bevels so I started messing with it. Typically, I should have left it alone. The stencil I had JUST fit where it is, I would have had to drop a letter from one end or the other if I were to have lowered it. I didn't feel like ponying up $50 for more stencils at that time so I had to make do with what I had on hand. The ricasso width/length still looked OK to me when I had finished the brass, it was only when I put the handle on that I thought that it stood out. I was hoping it was only me. Obviously not. Well, you know what they say, dance with the one you brung, so I went ahead and finished it. The Ipe isn't my best wood but this piece is a mix of sap wood/heart wood so it is two tone with a little depth that I can't bring through with a camera. I find that daggers are the trickiest things that I have made to date. From just getting the symmetry in the blade blank to getting the bevels to line up dead nuts on from one side to the other. Thanks for the comments and ideas, I will apply them on my next one. Steve B
 
just another idea steve. if the stencil doesn't fit the ricasso, why not on the blade? just a thought. clean looking work
 
Let me start by saying that if I managed to make a knife that looked that good, I would probably be doing flips.

The knife looks perfectly functional, but to my eye, the long ricasso makes me scratch my head. If the knife were a short sword, then a ricasso like that would make some sense to provide a place to put your finger for increased maneuverability, but on a dagger it seems unnecessary. So my first thought would be to significantly shorten the ricasso, but if the overall length of the blade were shortened then I think the handle would seem too long. Combined with the tang stamp that seems to large, the long ricasso gives me an impression of unnecessary weight (though I'm sure that this is actually negligible). The aesthetics of it just seem a bit off, and I feel like on a knife that has such minimalist styling, the aesthetics all come down to harmony.

My off the cuff thought is that maybe if the point where the ricasso meets the grind came to a point rather than a square edge, maybe that would relieve the blocky appearance of the ricasso. And also maybe some tapering of the handle would provide some visual balance.

If you'll excuse a crappy MS Paint illustration just to show what I am saying
View attachment 550419

This is all just my two cents of course. Like I said, I have yet to make a knife that I would willingly post on here, and definitely none tat look as good as yours.
 
Rusty, I didn't etch the bevel because I thought it would screw up the symmetry. I have since bought appropriate sized stencils. Ah well, at this point it is a done deal. The next one, hopefully, will be better, the one after that better still.
 
Either the guard or the ricasso being eliminated would have made the knife more symmetric. You will get there, You do clean work and it takes time to put all the pieces together. Use this as a stepping stone when you lay out your next creation.

Fred
 
I like the ricasso as is, but i think the guard has a big weight in proportions in that area. Thinner lugs, curved forward would have probably help visual blending the whole transition, making up for the thinner than the handle ricasso among other things.
I like the blade shape, reminds me the dagger of one of the charachters of one Cohen's Brothers movie (i can't remember which one :mad:)
 
I'm with most of the above so won't repeat.
I would like to see a more sculpted handle personally.
Work this good deserves a more exotic, character filled wood.
Excellent work.
Dozier
Accuracy beats speed
 
Tapering the lugs and curving forward would have closed the gap visually on the ricasso. As it is with the lugs curving backward I think makes the ricasso look even longer than it really is. Tapering the handle at the butt end would make the handle look less prominent. The wood FEELS good in the hand the way it is right now. Sometimes there is a fine line between knowing when to stop or to keep messing with it until you screw it up.
 
Lovely dagger!

Just a thought, by no means critique
With your handle stype and buttplate, you could have had the tang go trough the handle and screw the buttplate on.
That way you could have done without the pinn
 
Hengelo, funny you should mention that. I have been wanting to try a thru tang. Abbydaddy, bringing the ricasso grind to a point is a good one, I just have not figured out how to do that.
 
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