The Ugliest knife

T

thompsonblades

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Dec 25, 2009
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I was wondering, what is the ungliest knife you've ever made, and still willing to keep or say you've made?
Here is mine.
Hacker_1_take_2_by_angusman219.jpg
 
This has got to be the winner. Hammered out of an old file in 1963 in South Korea then lost outdoors for a couple of decades. Still, it was my first and I'm proud of it.

Dick
 

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Hey! I think all those look cool as hell, but I've been studying late 1600's colonial stuff lately and these fit right in there. Nice work!
 
That's way funny, cool post. Something about those ugly knives is charming. Especially Shoeman, at first I laughed, then I kept going back to it. It has a lot of character. It's cool you guys showed these. For a new guy like me, I like to see that you guys just didn't craft these beautiful works of out the first time out. For something so primitive as putting an edge on a piece of steel, knifemaking has so many things to learn.
 
I have a bin that I like to call the learning bin - it's where I keep all of my failed expirements. Screwing up is part of the learning process, so I keep them to remind me and shame me into doing better.......no one will ever, ever, see them though!

I will proudly display my successful works, and hide the shame of my failures in a deep place where they will haunt me forever.

Sorry guys, it just ain't gonna happen!!!!
 
Are the first two knives in the thread what Wayne Goddard referred to as "Buffalo Skinners" in The $50 Knife Shop? I'm just curious as the description in the book is a bit vague.
 
NDallyn said:
I have a bin that I like to call the learning bin - it's where I keep all of my failed expirements. Screwing up is part of the learning process, so I keep them to remind me and shame me into doing better.......no one will ever, ever, see them though!

I will proudly display my successful works, and hide the shame of my failures in a deep place where they will haunt me forever.

Sorry guys, it just ain't gonna happen!!!!
Click to expand...

LMAO!!! God you just recapped everything I wanted to say but didn't..... I also keep the "experiments for scrap. They come in handy... well parts of them any way....
 
Hello all this is my first post. And I think it is a fitting place for it to land. This thread gives me hope. I struck hammer to cherry red steel for the first time tonight. I walked away a little frustrated to be honest. Seeing these makes me want to go outside right now and fire up the one brick. It is 1a.m. though so probably not a good idea. I am going to finish that ugly S.O.B. and I am going to be proud of it because I made it. Thanks Thompsonblades, you made my night.
 
childzplay said:
That's way funny, cool post. Something about those ugly knives is charming. Especially Shoeman, at first I laughed, then I kept going back to it. It has a lot of character. It's cool you guys showed these. For a new guy like me, I like to see that you guys just didn't craft these beautiful works of out the first time out. For something so primitive as putting an edge on a piece of steel, knifemaking has so many things to learn.
Click to expand...

Thanks everybody. That was done as an experiment and as a way to spend an afternoon at our camp. We have no power, no running water, and propane for lights and a fridge there. After a week you get a little squirrelly, so I like to have diversions. On this trip I brought along a 3lb hammer, a gallon container of coal, safety glasses, welding gloves, a few files, vice grips, and a 10" section of rail. The donor metal was a long (8") spike we had found on the clam flats years ago. The shore there was the sight of an old lumber mill and wharf 100 years ago so all kinds of stuff surfaces at times.
So my brother and I built a small fire ring inside our large fire ring, started a fire and then added the coal as needed. We used a broken aluminum tent pole section as a "bellows" powered by our lungs. We had to take turns so nobody passed out :D The rail sat on a stump next to the fire, and from there it was the usual heat, hammer, heat, hammer until we got that blade shape. It was my first time doing this method, so it is as crude as you can see. We formed the blade first and then heated the handle end up and used the end of the rail as a hardy to hammer off at the length we wanted. That part turned out really ugly. Big lesson from that was to do the handle end first and pretty/square it up, then do the blade.
Once the blade was shaped we reheated it and quenched it in a coffee can of motor oil. The edge was filed, paracord wrapped, and voila! Neo-Primitive camp knife for real. Not just a "camp" knife, but made at camp! We plan on doing one or two a year there and leaving them as a collection. Our grandkids, when we have any, might get a kick out of it.
Oh yeah, the tent pole got shorter as we went along! :thumbup:
 
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DrThunder88 said:
Are the first two knives in the thread what Wayne Goddard referred to as "Buffalo Skinners" in The $50 Knife Shop? I'm just curious as the description in the book is a bit vague.
Click to expand...


Mine is. You can see it's hammered out of a file. If you concentrate your forging on one edge, it will take that radical curve. I knew that when I started and was trying to make a skinner profile :rolleyes: It has a stick tang embedded in epoxy inside the leg bone handle (which I found on the side of the road). Steel washer for an end cap. Slick.
 
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