I recently visited custom maker Robert Hankins here in Arizona to discuss the possibility of becoming a knifemaking student/apprentice sheathmaker.
I don't know if I had made it clear enough beforehand how much of a beginner I really am, but he was still quite open with his time and knowledge and gladly showed me around his shop, some basics of working with kydex sheaths, and finally his complete process of grinding a blade from a profiled blank into a finished knife ready to be heat treated. (Which incidentally worked a little bit better than my primitive attempts at forging on cinder blocks...
)
This was all quite fascinating and I was quietly taking in as much knowledge as possible, when without warning he got this deranged look in his eyes, pulled out some homemade design prototype that he had and started smashing the edge of the knife into the flat of his vise!
"Look," he told me, "no damage to the blade," though I have to admit that at the time I was looking nervously in the direction of the poor mangled vise rather than the knife that did the damage, my main concern being that the crazy man with the knife wouldn't test it on _me_ next, and while the knife looked pretty much entirely unfazed by the impromptu vise demolition, I really wasn't going to argue with him either way. I was checking the exits.
I did feel a little safer when he put the knife down, though of course I had to be careful it didn't bounce at me, seeing as he had opted simply to drop the knife point-first onto the concrete floor of his shop.
Upon inspection, the blade again appeared absolutely unfazed by the ordeal, though the floor wasn't looking quite as nice as it had before. IIRC, he then told me that he'd also been testing it with a lot of throwing and possibly (?) busting up some cinder blocks. (I couldn't remember everything he told me he'd been doing.)
Anyway, at the end of the day, he sent me home with a lot more appreciation of how knives are made and a free 5160 profiled bowie blank for my own nefarious forging experiments, and the next time I checked my e-mail, I found he had even sent me some links about suppliers and forging completely on his own initiative!
I guess the moral of the story here is that you can meet a lot of good guys in the knife world and also here on Bladeforums.
That, and though Robert appears to be making some pretty solid blades down here, you might want to pass if he ever offers up a slightly used vise for sale.
-Dave
I don't know if I had made it clear enough beforehand how much of a beginner I really am, but he was still quite open with his time and knowledge and gladly showed me around his shop, some basics of working with kydex sheaths, and finally his complete process of grinding a blade from a profiled blank into a finished knife ready to be heat treated. (Which incidentally worked a little bit better than my primitive attempts at forging on cinder blocks...
)This was all quite fascinating and I was quietly taking in as much knowledge as possible, when without warning he got this deranged look in his eyes, pulled out some homemade design prototype that he had and started smashing the edge of the knife into the flat of his vise!
"Look," he told me, "no damage to the blade," though I have to admit that at the time I was looking nervously in the direction of the poor mangled vise rather than the knife that did the damage, my main concern being that the crazy man with the knife wouldn't test it on _me_ next, and while the knife looked pretty much entirely unfazed by the impromptu vise demolition, I really wasn't going to argue with him either way. I was checking the exits.
I did feel a little safer when he put the knife down, though of course I had to be careful it didn't bounce at me, seeing as he had opted simply to drop the knife point-first onto the concrete floor of his shop.
Upon inspection, the blade again appeared absolutely unfazed by the ordeal, though the floor wasn't looking quite as nice as it had before. IIRC, he then told me that he'd also been testing it with a lot of throwing and possibly (?) busting up some cinder blocks. (I couldn't remember everything he told me he'd been doing.)
Anyway, at the end of the day, he sent me home with a lot more appreciation of how knives are made and a free 5160 profiled bowie blank for my own nefarious forging experiments, and the next time I checked my e-mail, I found he had even sent me some links about suppliers and forging completely on his own initiative!
I guess the moral of the story here is that you can meet a lot of good guys in the knife world and also here on Bladeforums.
That, and though Robert appears to be making some pretty solid blades down here, you might want to pass if he ever offers up a slightly used vise for sale.
-Dave
