What knife (knives) put you outside your comfort zone the most?

DerekH

DerekH

Handsome According to my Mother
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Let me start by saying I am not a knifemaker. Probably never will be. I do however love to watch the WIP threads, and see the amazing works that are done by so many different people in so many different styles, and a lot of that happens right here. Earlier today I remembered an older thread where the legendary James Terrio made a knife that looked quite different from a lot of his other works (that I had seen anyways). While I don't know if it pushed him to think outside the box I do imagine it was somewhat outside of his comfort zone and that got me to wondering what knives might have made some of you have to stop what you were doing and look at it in a completely different light to achieve something you had never managed to do before. I am highly encouraging the posting of pics, long, drawn out stories, and what you might have learned from any such situations. You never know, what is(was) difficult for you might be proving to be the same to someone else, or maybe you figured it out an someone else needs that info.

And if this is the wrong place for this or if I am overstepping any lines or anything then I apologize ahead of time.

(Was "the legendary" James Terrio a bit over the top? :D)
 
This tiny little thing for Nix.
Gave me fits! Small is hard!

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(hidden pins going in)

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DerekH said:
Earlier today I remembered an older thread where the legendary James Terrio made a knife that looked quite different from a lot of his other works (that I had seen anyways).
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That knife was designed by the client. It presented several challenges and firsts for me... multiple/compound grinds, hand-cut serrations & jimping, and milled scales. The sheath he requested was a little different from what we had made before, too.

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This was a pair for one client. I drew it up based on screen-shots from knives in his favorite video game. First time for a recurve, first sawteeth, first lugged guard, first pommels. The profiles (including sawteeth) were cut for me by a waterjet company, everything else was "machined" by hand by me. Very challenging. It was my first order from overseas, too... dealing with the shipping and customs was... interesting.

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This rehandle job was pretty straightforward, but the sheath required some features we hadn't done before.

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Kitchen knives seem so simple, but they're harder to grind than they look. This was my first:

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DerekH said:
(Was "the legendary" James Terrio a bit over the top? :D)
Click to expand...
Not at all! I've heard many people say he's a legend in his own mind :p
 
james terrio said:
Kitchen knives seem so simple, but they're harder to grind than they look. This was my first:
Click to expand...

That's the truth... the bevel angles are so shallow.
Nice set of stretch blades, James!

-Daizee
 
DerekH, I have been at it 1 year part time,evenings and weekends and have not found a comfort zone yet.I don't make the samething over and over so no comfort.I am focusing hard on the grind lines,as this the hardest thing for me.
Eddie
 
Probably the most challenging project was building a knife around a blade...
Somebody offered some Benchmade blades on this forum, from a model they decided not to build. The geometry was interesting and clever, but very different from how I've set up sidelocks in the past. Other projects have been way more time consuming, but this one was quite a bit more challenging than starting from scratch...you'd think that getting a finished, hardened blade would be a shortcut, but oh noooo.....
"Oh, no- not another learning experience...."
 
Laminating 416 stainless with high carbon steel and making a proper kitchen knife from it, attempting to make shear steel and feathered W's Damascus have all caused multiple failures for me. Every so often I want some torture and start one of these three. I will get it eventually I guess...
 
The Sab integral here was my most challenging so far, design and execution wise. The bolster was just so small and completely round, it was really difficult to design anything that looked alright to me. I forged it to rectangle it up, which helped a little. Still though, trying to figure out the heat treating and grinding steps were very tricky, because I did all of the steel removal in that area by hand.

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I find daggers one of the most difficult to pull off cleanly. Every part has to flow into the next with perfect symmetry. On a hunter, you can have a little too much belly on the blade, or a curve in the handle that is a bit fat, or...and it will look great. But on a dagger those would look like a 300 pound woman in a size 8 bikini. In the same way, the grind on a bowie can vary in height, and the plunges can be a bit uneven from one side to the other.....the most minor variation in a dead straight ridge, perfectly aligned plunges, or any cross section that isn't a mirror image will look horrible. The handle has to be the perfect blend of size and shape, or it will look "ODD".

The payoff comes when you get all the stars to align, and the dagger really "POPS". It is no surprise how daggers often get front page placement on magazines, and win high awards.
 
Daggers ARE hard to execute ! Especially getting them "book-matched" .But , for me , its anything designed by the customer .I just cant do it . I used to be a wicked "Yes Man" and let people tell me how to design a knife ,then I realized its MY knife designs I enjoy making and thats what people want .So now I let the customer request things in a broad range and I come up with whatever I want within that category .Now Im comfortable with every knife I make.
 
I have lots of trouble grinding kitchen knives. That is, tall thin ones. Convex grinding means I have to use very light pressure and super sharp belts. Well, light pressure won't cut it on CPMS35VN, and that damn steel ruins belts as fast as possible.
 
I am starting a dagger this week. I have a hunter friend who wants it not as a showpiece, but as a carry in the bush last ditch defense against a bear. I am getting better at my grinds, but this is symmetry on a level I haven't had to work with yet, and my guards still don't fit perfectly. Guard fitment is my biggest frustration at this point.
 
I feel perfectly comfortable with guards ,but maybe it helps me to have a circa WW 2 , bench-top ,horizontal milling machine that came out of a Navy training vessel at my disposal .
 
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