Friday, June 24, 2016

Zombie killer, tactical elvish, and simple camp chopper

Some biggish blades I forged out for the Blade Show.
 
This one is the second of the blades inspired by Chris Redfield's Resident Evil 5 knife that I've forged.  The steel is 5160, handle is black TeroTuf with flared stainless steel rivets.  Blade length is 16 3/4", overall length is 21 3/4"
 
 
I happily appropriate the term "tactical elvish" from my buddy Tobin Nieto to describe this blade.  It ended up being fairly close to my recollection of one of the rejected designs for Sting from Weta Workshops.  Now, if I saw the picture again, I might find I'm wrong.  :D
5160 and TeroTuf, blade length of 14 1/4", OAL of 19 5/8".
 
 
And a simple camp chopper forged from 80CrV2, with marine epoxy-impregnated paracord over neoprene.  Blade is 12", OAL is 18 1/4".
 
 
 
 

A pair of carcass splitters

So, some of y'all might remember the carcass splitter I made a while back.
 
 
 Well, I made a couple more.  :D  I wanted these to be wider blades, more like meat cleavers and less like a Chinese pole arm.  The original was forged from 1/4" x 2" 5160; these were forged from 1/4" x 3" 5160.  The new ones have hemp wraps and Turk's head knots over a foundation of neoprene, all impregnated with marine epoxy.
 
 
They were on my table at the Blade Show.  The lights of the wood display behind me made it hard to get decent photos of my side of the aisle, but this should give an idea of size in hand, and also what a year's worth of beard growing looks like on me.
 
 
 
The longer of the two has a 17" blade and an overall length of 36".
 
 
 
The smaller of the two has a 14 3/4" blade and 34 1/2" overall length.
 
 
As before, the sheaths are a collaboration between myself and my buddy Tobin Nieto.  In this case they are distressed rawhide over a Kydex core, with brick red India ink "blood splatters" added by me.  We wanted something that looked like it would hang above Leatherface's bed.  I think we got the look.  :D
 
 
The big one is on its way to South Africa with Trevor Burger, the fellow in the blue shirt standing behind me facing the other way.  He makes awesome folders.  He had us write a label stating "Sold to Trevor Burger" on the table next to it and would periodically check to make sure that the label was still there.  The smaller one is on its way to California.
 
I have several more carcass splitters and large cleavers coming along in the next little bit, too.  These are kind of fun to do, though definitely a challenge working on this scale.

Wednesday, June 15, 2016

Back home!

I'm back from the Blade Show and working on getting back into the swing of things.  We had two tables this year, and in spite of not having remotely everything I wanted, the tables were plenty full.
 
 
 
If you weren't there, this is what my shining visage looked like.
 
 
 
My loverly bride and I came back to Texas by way of the beautiful state of Tennessee.  It was my first time in the state and I really enjoyed it.  There's a reason they call them the Smoky Mountains!
 

 
 
 
There will be some pics upcoming of blades that were at the show, and some will be available.  In the mean time, Shop Cat!