Please bear with me!! The Story
.My father was a knife maker. He lived in Australia and was a member of the Australian Knife Makers Guild. Im not sure if he was a voting member or not but hed mentioned it many times so I assumed hed joined.
He didnt make knifes for very long, 6 8 years. Mostly custom pieces at first but he developed a line of hunting and kitchen knives that did quite well. Hed moved away from custom work as the demand for the assembly line stuff grew. He bored of it and ended up selling his small shop to a larger company. He piddled around with some blades in his garage shop at home after that but never did much and eventually stopped altogether.
My younger brother & I worked with my dad quite a bit. I worked with him in the beginning when things were still new and we did everything in the garage by hand, including tempering the blades. It was fascinating to me. I eventually made a folder of my own, from start to finish. I designed it as I went along. I started with a 2 inch long piece of wood. I knew I wanted to make a handle out of it. It was scrap from one of the handles my dad had just made and it was dark and beautiful. I have no idea what it was. I ended up making a lock back folder that was about an inch and a half long folded. The blade was about ¾ of on inch long. It took me hours and hours of trial and error to get it right. I had to finally, after trying so many different things, make the spring out of a mouse trap wire. It was nearly impossible to get it to work but when I finally did, it was perfect. Well mostly. It had the tiniest amount of play in the blade just before it snapped onto the closed position. Id done some filing along the spine to make like a zig zag pattern all the way to the blade. I used brass for the liner and the bolster. I even fashioned a custom sheath for it out of a few scraps of leather. I lined it with suede to limit the scratches. Im including a link to a knife I found that looks quite similar not so much in design but in material.
http://www.arizonacustomknives.com/displayKnife.asp?pid=3193
I hope that works. Anyway, I had some of my dads knife maker friends tell me I could sell it for a lot of $$ (they may have been humoring me I cant really say) but I never even looked into it because I wanted to keep the first knife I ever made completely by myself. So I did. My dad died a few years ago. We (my siblings & I) each have a few of his knives. Until recently I still had that one too. About 4 weeks ago my house was broken into by what we figure were some local kids. They didnt take much but some movies, some video gaming stuff & the contents of my jewelry boxes. Of course thats where Id al\ways kept my little knife. I was so upset. How would I replace it? I cant. I spoke to my insurance company and they told me to find out how much to have it made again by someone else and they would pay me that. I would so much rather give that $$ to the punks that stole it in trade for my knife but obviously Ill take the cash. Would you know how to price it out or where I could find out how? Any help would be g3eatly appreciated
He didnt make knifes for very long, 6 8 years. Mostly custom pieces at first but he developed a line of hunting and kitchen knives that did quite well. Hed moved away from custom work as the demand for the assembly line stuff grew. He bored of it and ended up selling his small shop to a larger company. He piddled around with some blades in his garage shop at home after that but never did much and eventually stopped altogether.
My younger brother & I worked with my dad quite a bit. I worked with him in the beginning when things were still new and we did everything in the garage by hand, including tempering the blades. It was fascinating to me. I eventually made a folder of my own, from start to finish. I designed it as I went along. I started with a 2 inch long piece of wood. I knew I wanted to make a handle out of it. It was scrap from one of the handles my dad had just made and it was dark and beautiful. I have no idea what it was. I ended up making a lock back folder that was about an inch and a half long folded. The blade was about ¾ of on inch long. It took me hours and hours of trial and error to get it right. I had to finally, after trying so many different things, make the spring out of a mouse trap wire. It was nearly impossible to get it to work but when I finally did, it was perfect. Well mostly. It had the tiniest amount of play in the blade just before it snapped onto the closed position. Id done some filing along the spine to make like a zig zag pattern all the way to the blade. I used brass for the liner and the bolster. I even fashioned a custom sheath for it out of a few scraps of leather. I lined it with suede to limit the scratches. Im including a link to a knife I found that looks quite similar not so much in design but in material.
http://www.arizonacustomknives.com/displayKnife.asp?pid=3193
I hope that works. Anyway, I had some of my dads knife maker friends tell me I could sell it for a lot of $$ (they may have been humoring me I cant really say) but I never even looked into it because I wanted to keep the first knife I ever made completely by myself. So I did. My dad died a few years ago. We (my siblings & I) each have a few of his knives. Until recently I still had that one too. About 4 weeks ago my house was broken into by what we figure were some local kids. They didnt take much but some movies, some video gaming stuff & the contents of my jewelry boxes. Of course thats where Id al\ways kept my little knife. I was so upset. How would I replace it? I cant. I spoke to my insurance company and they told me to find out how much to have it made again by someone else and they would pay me that. I would so much rather give that $$ to the punks that stole it in trade for my knife but obviously Ill take the cash. Would you know how to price it out or where I could find out how? Any help would be g3eatly appreciated
