Matthew Gregory
Chief Executive in charge of Entertainment
- Joined
- Jan 12, 2005
- Messages
- 6,390
I work slowly.
Painfully slowly, sometimes.
Three years ago, Lorien made a drawing of this outrageous knife. I started on the project, hot and heavy, and got frustrated by a variety of things after making the blade, and just walked away. This blade has been hanging from a hook in my shop for almost that entire time. I toyed with just throwing it out countless times. Shortly before Blade Show this year, I made up my mind to return to it, making it with my own thoughts on the design.
Stuart Branson was given the design as well, aptly called "Dragon Boat", if you haven't seen this thread yet, I strongly suggest you do now. Stuart positively crushed this one, as he always seems to. To the frustration of many, I only make what I want to make, and how I want to make it. I think that was one of the hangups for me, on this project. Lorien's design was flawless - truly perfect, in every respect. The problem was, it wasn't me. Something I wish I could be, perhaps, but not me. Not really. It took this long for me to relax about it, and just let me be 'me' with it. I hope that makes sense, and I hope folks will understand it.
The full distal tapered 12" long blade of W2 has the most freakish hamon ever - the 'bare' looking areas toward the middle aren't bare, but rather have an excellent but faint "woodgrain" look to them, as if the heat was wafting and chasing its way out of the steel, and leaving permanent ripples in its wake. No matter what I tried, I can't capture it with a camera. SO frustrating!!!!!!
I elected to use brass for the guard. No one but me seems to like brass, which is horribly unfortunate. It's a wonderful material, with genuine character and a luster and tone that I think has much greater depth than stainless steel. I textured and peened the face of it to give it even more dimension, slightly rounding the edge, and then blackening and darkening it to give it an aged quality.
Once it had been deeply blackened, I buffed it back a touch to allow a bit of that warm brass luster to peek through.
The figured koa handle was left much thicker than Lorien's original drawing, predominantly to make space for my BIG tang, and also because I like a hand-filling handle on knives like this. With the resin-soaked wrap, it fits my spiderfingers quite well, while still allowing for a looser 'snap-chop' hold using thumb and forefinger. A peened and aged brass pin completes the build.
Overall length is 19-1/2", handle is 7-1/2", and the total weight is 20-1/4 ounces. Point of balance is about 3/4" forward of the guard.
Here's a quick video of it, my feeble attempt at trying to show the detail and dimensions of the piece:
Thanks for looking!
Painfully slowly, sometimes.
Three years ago, Lorien made a drawing of this outrageous knife. I started on the project, hot and heavy, and got frustrated by a variety of things after making the blade, and just walked away. This blade has been hanging from a hook in my shop for almost that entire time. I toyed with just throwing it out countless times. Shortly before Blade Show this year, I made up my mind to return to it, making it with my own thoughts on the design.
Stuart Branson was given the design as well, aptly called "Dragon Boat", if you haven't seen this thread yet, I strongly suggest you do now. Stuart positively crushed this one, as he always seems to. To the frustration of many, I only make what I want to make, and how I want to make it. I think that was one of the hangups for me, on this project. Lorien's design was flawless - truly perfect, in every respect. The problem was, it wasn't me. Something I wish I could be, perhaps, but not me. Not really. It took this long for me to relax about it, and just let me be 'me' with it. I hope that makes sense, and I hope folks will understand it.
The full distal tapered 12" long blade of W2 has the most freakish hamon ever - the 'bare' looking areas toward the middle aren't bare, but rather have an excellent but faint "woodgrain" look to them, as if the heat was wafting and chasing its way out of the steel, and leaving permanent ripples in its wake. No matter what I tried, I can't capture it with a camera. SO frustrating!!!!!!
I elected to use brass for the guard. No one but me seems to like brass, which is horribly unfortunate. It's a wonderful material, with genuine character and a luster and tone that I think has much greater depth than stainless steel. I textured and peened the face of it to give it even more dimension, slightly rounding the edge, and then blackening and darkening it to give it an aged quality.
Once it had been deeply blackened, I buffed it back a touch to allow a bit of that warm brass luster to peek through.
The figured koa handle was left much thicker than Lorien's original drawing, predominantly to make space for my BIG tang, and also because I like a hand-filling handle on knives like this. With the resin-soaked wrap, it fits my spiderfingers quite well, while still allowing for a looser 'snap-chop' hold using thumb and forefinger. A peened and aged brass pin completes the build.
Overall length is 19-1/2", handle is 7-1/2", and the total weight is 20-1/4 ounces. Point of balance is about 3/4" forward of the guard.
Here's a quick video of it, my feeble attempt at trying to show the detail and dimensions of the piece:
Thanks for looking!
