What's happening in the David Mary Custom shop?

I smell some freshly baked knives cooling on the stovetop.
 
David Mary said:
Haha.

Well the heat treatment is outsourced entirely at the moment. These AEB-L were done by Jarod Todd.
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Is there any plan on moving your heat treatment to in house? I ask only out of curiosity and a desire to see you successfully expand your business.
 
Thanks for asking. I started heat treating my sawmill blade steel knives, and my 1084 knives in the second half of 2019, and continued into early 2020, just after being laid off. After a couple of mishaps, I managed to get quite good results with my set up. But I lost confidence in the set up when I started getting propane flare ups with increasing frequency. Heat treating my own stuff again is not in the near future. Moving to a more suitable location is my priority for a number of reasons, most of all being the ability to work more hours without scruple. It's legal to have a home occupation in an R2 zone in this municipality, but at the same time, it's a pretty tightly packed neighbourhood, so I limit shop time as much as I can without holding back anyone's knives. I have to strike a fine balance of courtesy toward my neighbours with the fulfillment of my obligations. Additionally, when I have more room, I will look at allocating a space for a proper and safe heat treating set up.

For now, and hopefully with the continued help of Andy and Jarod for my heat treating needs, I intend to keep making good performing, interesting knives with the simple means at my disposal, while trying to find new ways to improve the quality and efficiency of my processes and output.
 
David,
I really like that Khukri, reminds me a lot of one of my favorites- the Philippine Barong. Could you give more of the specs on blade length, grind, etc? Thanks, Bill

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Sorry, too lazy to take a pic of one of mine so I borrow this one.
 
Hey Bill, I sure can. I have to fire up the CAD program to so so, and it takes a while on my clunker. But I will post after I show a little bit of what was happening in the shop today:

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L lmalterna the Khukuri blade length is 240.933 mm in CAD, or 9.485551". 🤓 The one above is ground high saber vex with a thinner cutting edge than you might expect for a big chopper, but not too thin.
 
There is a Barax in AEB-L in WIP as we speak, and I was going to try to finish it up last week, but then the blanks I am working on now came in. They were ordered before the Barax. But the Barax has a handle attached, it just need the ergos refined. I am hoping to have it go out Friday as well, if possible. And after that we're looking at another 8670 knife for Chad, and a ring knife in AEB-L for you, Bob. Of course, all of this gets put on hold if the AEB-L thick stock blanks or LC200N blanks come in, as those orders were placed first.
 
I hope that you can get those blanks, and get your scheduling fully back on track!
(I can be patient...)
 
David,
Forgive me but this keeps calling to me.
"... the Khukuri blade length is 240.933 mm in CAD, or 9.485551". 🤓 The one above is ground high saber vex with a thinner cutting edge than you might expect for a big chopper, but not too thin."

In this application and grind, how do you feel 8670 and AEBL compare in edge maintenance? Also, would stretching the blade closer to 12" terribly affect the balance?

Thanks,
Bill
 
8670 and AEB-L should be similar for edge maintenance, with of course a higher focus on cleaning and oiling the 8670. But both are extremely tough steels that take fine edges and hold them well through harder use. I like the balance on that Khukuri as it is. Lengthening to 12" for more reach and a heavier chop would make it much more powerful a chopper, with the accompanying increase in effort required to use it for any length of time. Some days I am all for that, as I like to get some exercise while I work... but I don't feel that way every day, so, in the end, a Khkuri for me is going to have a 9-10" blade if I make it in 1/4" stock. If I need a longer blade, I want a Barax in 1/8" steel, or maybe a slightly less tall bladed Barax in 5/32".
 
But if you want a 12" bladed Khukuri, Bill, why not look at the design as above, with the blade extended to 12", and in a thinner stock like 5/32" or 3/16"? You get the added length, without all the extra mass, but still have a powerful chopping tool that, although it may not bite quite as deep, will be much easier to pick up and swing again, over and over, while it nevertheless demolishes the wood you need to process.
 
EDChef for another valued repeat customer, whose first one sadly ran away from home (or maybe/hopefully it's just hiding?). This one has the old handle style, which I think I will call the EDChef Mark I, while the new handle style (which can be seen here) I will call the EDChef Mark II. All EDChefs now feature radiused spines and guards for comfort, however this customer advised me that he likes to scrape with the spine, if possible, and so he asked for a radiused spine where the thumb goes, and at the tip, but squared edges in between for scraping. So if you look carefully you can see this feature on the knife. I guess that makes it an EDChef Mark I(b) lol

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AEB-L Upswept Ringer with Suretouch™ handle. Of all the ringers I have done - and they all felt nice to me so far - none has yet felt as sublime in the hand as this one. I am most pleased with how this came out.

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