Helm Enterprises, Forging Division

Primal/Tactical SERE knife

2012-01-03T15:36:00.000-08:00

I was contacted by a flight engineer on an AC-130 gunship about a knife to carry with him. He's about to go do his SERE training and wanted a good knife to take, as well as just general usage. He gave me some general parameters of what he was looking for and a blade size, 7". I sent him a quick sketch:

He approved and I got busy. I started with 3/4" round 5160 and forged this:

I cleaned up the profile and it looked much more like the sketch, even though I didn't have to take off much steel. After cleanup grinding:

I soaked it in vinegar to eat the scale off the blade, filed the bevels, a triple hardened it in veggie oil:

After tempering three times and cleanup, I used a new style of cord wrap I've been working on. It uses an underlay and an overlay of contrasting parachute cord, the underlay intact to build up the size of the handle appropriately and the overlay stipped of its core cords to lay flatter. The inspiration for this style of wrap came from a Mongol saber I saw recently in a museum exhibit on Ghengis Khan. I looked at it closely and fixed in my mind how it looked, then played around with paracrod until I figured it out. Fairly simple, really. After each layer is wrapped, it is sealed in cyanoacrylate (superglue), which wicks down into the fibers and hardens, forming a solid composite material in place.

In this case, the underlay is olive drab and the overlay is desert tan. After that, a Kydex sheath with a pair of MOLLE clips, sharpening, and it's in the mail on its way to him.

The spine on this is 1/4" thick, yet because it's forged into one long bevel (essentially a full flat grind, though it's forged and not ground), it still has a bevel angle that cuts well.

I'm looking forward to hearing how this knife does with the SERE training. Several more in this basic style are in the works for some Marines. :)

The Wasteland Crow Project: Barong and Symbiote

2012-01-02T22:55:00.000-08:00

Noah has worked his magic with horse hide, and another Wasteland Crow Project has been delivered to a satisfied customer. They are destined to be put to work to slay some brush, which satisfies me.

A heavy-duty snap on the belt loop of the symbiote blade's sheath allows it to be securely fastened onto the main scabbard or detached and worn seperately on the owner's belt. In addition, the main scabbard can be worn on a belt or on a shoulder baldric. Carry options are nice!

I thought it was cool how this in-progress shot of the back of the main scabbard looked like a face on a totem or a Viking artifact.

Check out other pictures of the leather being worked on at the Wasteland Crow Project blog: The Wasteland Crow Project

Happy New Year!

2011-12-31T21:53:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year, everyone! There is a lot of neat stuff upcoming in 2012 here at Helm Enterprises, Forging Division. I'm working on some of it right now. :)

Also, at the time of writing this I am only 15 views short of having 30,000 page views. Wow! Thanks to everyone out there checking out my work, from down the street in San Antonio to across the world in Hong Kong. I'll be putting up a lot more work as I go!

May 2012 be a blessed year for you.

The Ridiculously Large Bowie

2011-12-11T21:39:00.000-08:00

Some time back, Max, the Marine who visited my shop on the return leg to L.A. on his cross-country van trip, saw a Bowie I had forged out earlier that week on a whim. I had a piece of 1 1/2" x 1/4" 1084 bar stock and I wanted to make a wide blade out of it. The Ridiculously Large Bowie was born.

Before he left, Max wrote a check for the Ridiculously Large Bowie. I mailed it to him last week. Its final dimensions ended up being 14 1/4" overall with a blade 8 1/2" long by 2 1/4" wide. The spine was still between 3/16" and 1/4", so I could have pulled it out even wider if I had wanted. In spite of its large size, it is surprisingly quick and not particularly heavy.

Here's the RLB as Max saw it:

Next to the more normal-sized Bowie I forged along with Max as a demonstration of how to make his own:

The demonstration Bowie, by way of comparison, has a blade 1 3/4" wide.

And as it arrived to Max, with shellac-sealed hemp main wrap, three-strand and two-strand Turk's head knots in cotton, and a shaving sharp edge:

In comparison with an EDC-sized knife with about a 4" blade:

Max was quite pleased to have it arrive and described it as "lovely" with a Marine-grade adjective in front of that. :) I've already had a request to make another one from another customer. :D

Here's the Bowie Max made on his visit:

And him enjoying his Bowie and a cigar in my shop:

San Antonio Gun Show

2011-12-07T22:17:00.000-08:00

Tobin Nieto and I will be sharing a table at the San Antonio Gun Show this weekend at the Exposition Hall in the Freeman Coliseum. If you are going to be in San Antonio, come by and see us.

Details on the show are here: San Antonio Gun Show

Dha dah dao: Neo-tribal bush sword daisho

2011-11-20T20:53:00.000-08:00

This should be playing in the background:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuB6xTi8UXU

This is a pair of dha that I made a little while back. They are based on southeast Asian dha, which have a vaguely similar profile to katana, though with very different construction.

Both of these have integral socket handles, which are not traditional on dha (nothing I do is traditional, really). Handles are wrapped in hemp, with cotton cord Turk's head knots, sealed in black shellac. Both of them have spines averaging 1/8" thick.

The big one has an overall length of 27 5/8", a blade length of 19", a three-strand Turk's head knot at the blade end of the handle and a two-strand at the butt end.

The little one has an overall length of 19 3/8", a blade length of 12 3/4", and two-strand Turk's head knots fore and aft.

These two are quite fun. I'm really pleased with them. Here's Tobin Nieto, with whom I share a table at the local monthly gun show, doing his best Chinese demon impersonations with them. :D

Primal utility

2011-11-20T18:01:00.000-08:00

I had a fellow stop by my table at the last gun show who liked a couple of knives I had for sale, but wanted something between the two. I wrote down the details of what he wanted and his contact information and told him I'd get started on it Monday. A couple of weeks later, he picked it up, quite pleased with the outcome.

Approximately 4" blade forged from 3/4" round 5160 bar, triple normalized, filed primary bevel, triple quenched, triple tempered, hemp cord main wrap, cotton cord two strand Turk's head knot, amber shellac sealer, shaving sharp.

Scavenger blade: bush tanto

2011-11-15T23:12:00.000-08:00

I've been busy lately but haven't put up many pics of what I've been doing. I feel like I'm falling behind! :)

This was one I made a while back. It's what I term a "scavenger blade", a stock removal blade that is made from a plow disk from my family's farm. The blade was cut from the disk, flattened out, the profile cleaned up, and then it was normalized multiple times to make sure it didn't try to return to its previous curved cross section. Then the bevels were ground in and it was heat treated.

The blade is 8" long and the overall length is 13 1/8", with a spine thickness of approximately 1/8". The handle has full-length leather slabs underneath a hemp cord wrap and a triple strand Turk's head knot in black cotton, all sealed with amber shellac. I think of this as a "bush tanto", though a couple of people have commented that they think it would make a good barbecue slicer. The texture on the blade comes from rust pitting on the plow disk from years of sitting under live oak leaves.

I tried to figure out how to get a stock removal wakizashi out of a plow disk but wasn't able to. :D

Quasi-khopesh short bush sword

2011-11-03T14:33:00.000-07:00

I didn't have a khopesh in mind when I began this, but that's the closest existant pattern to what I ended up with. I like the timeless quality of this one; I could equally see it being weilded by Gilgamesh to hew down the cedars or in the hands of one of the "chig" aliens in Space: Above and Beyond.

Forged spring steel, integral socket handle, triple hardened in veggie oil, triple tempered. The back edge of the clip is fully sharpened. Handle wrapped in hmep with cottorn double Turk's head knots all sealed in black shellac. Blade is 12", overall length is 18 1/2".

The Wasteland Crow Project: Barong and Symbiote

2011-11-03T12:58:00.000-07:00

Following the first Wasteland Crow Project collaboration between myself and Noah Legel of Wasteland Leatherwork some time back, we planned to do more. This was the second project I forged for that, to be sent to him at the same time as a third project for him to do the leatherworking portion. The barong and symbiote both have integral socket handles, false edges, and raised clips, with cotton cord handle wraps sealed with black shellac. The symbiote is loosely based on balisong blade profiles I have seen.

The best laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft agley, or so I've heard.

The barong and symbiote, after sitting in my shop for over a year waiting on the other project which suffered multiple setbacks, were purchased by a fellow who saw the pictures on the Wasteland Crow Project Blog. So I took them out of the display case, did some maintenance, made sure they were both shaving sharp, and shipped 'em off to Noah to do his magic.

Here's what they looked like right before getting packed away:

I eagerly anticipate seeing what Noah comes up with.

Interesting visitor to my shop

2011-10-31T23:04:00.000-07:00

I got a text message on Friday from someone saying that he knew the son of my shop's landlord, that he was interested in blacksmithing, and could he come by. I told him I was a bit busy but that he could.

What I didn't realize until he got to the shop was that he was a 16 year veteran of the Marines (out now) named Max who was on a road trip that had lasted a month so far and taken him from Los Angeles to Portland, across to Tennessee, and was in San Antonio only briefly on his return trip to L.A. He had met the landlord's son at a party in L.A. I dropped what I was doing and we forged out a small knife blade. Max was really taken with my primal/tactical Bowie "Thunderdome", as well as a Ridiculously Large Bowie that I had forged out a day or two earlier, so I agreed that we could forge one out the next day, Saturday.

On Saturday, I cut out a couple of pieces of F-250 coil spring, and we got busy. Using my hydraulic forging press to straighten the spring and Gunnhilda, my power hammer, to do the heavy forging, we forged out a couple of large Bowies, one for him and one for me to demonstrate the process. After taking a break in the evening to eat some pizza and carve some pumpkins with my girlfriend and one of her friends, we got down to the stock removal. We finished that up, hardened three times in veggie oil, then started the blades on their first tempering cycle before calling it a night around midnight.

The next morning we started the second tempering cycle, had a leisurely breakfast of coffee, pork chop, and huevos rancheros at a cafe around the corner, started the third and final tempering cycle, and took a quick trip to see a couple of the Spanish missions San Antonio is famous for. My girlfriend met us back at the shop, where I snapped some pictures of Max and his knife, then shut down the shop to spend the rest of the day with my girlfriend while Max headed out of town. Before he left, Max gave me and my girlfriend, a nursing student, the medical kit he had carried as a combat medic in Afghanistan. We were both greatly touched by this generous gesture.

Here's Max enjoying a cigar and his new Bowie that he made in Texas:

Here's what the Bowie looked like. We turned a missed hammer stroke into a notch for his thumb, and he was very pleased with the result. We established the secondary bevel on my belt grinder before he left, and he will clean off the baked-on oil, wrap the handle, and sharpen it back in L.A. This thing is a working knife, and balanced a bit ahead of the blade/tang transition. It'll chop, but it'll fight well too. Max knows how to handle a blade, and I'd hate to be on the other end in a fight.

I didn't get to measure the blade before he left, but it was approximately as long as the one I made to demonstrate, which is 12" overall with a 7" blade.

Before he left, Max wrote a check for the Ridiculously Large Bowie. I'll finish it up and mail it his way. It's forged from 1/4" thick 1084 bar 1 1/2" wide, and ended up 14 1/4" overall with a blade 8 1/2" long by 2 1/4" wide. The demonstration Bowie, by way of comparison, has a blade 1 3/4" wide.

I was very glad to meet Max, and he is welcome back at my shop any time he's in San Antonio again! :)

P.S. - I was going to wrap the handle of the Ridiculously Large Bowie in neon orange paracord and name it "Subtlety", but Max said he had seen enough paracord for a while and ordered up hemp with amber shellac instead. :D

Where has Helm Enterprises, Forging Division work gone to?

2011-10-20T19:57:00.000-07:00

As more of my work gets spread to the far corners of the earth, I thought it would be fun and informative to keep track of the places I have sent my work. So, in alphabetical order, the different countries and states my work has ended up:

Outside the U.S.A.:

Afghanistan
Canada
China
Russia

Inside of the U.S.A.:

Arizona
California
Connecticut
Idaho
Indiana
Iowa
Kansas
South Dakota
Texas
Virginia

If you have bought something from me and don't see your region listed, just post a comment below and I'll remedy that!

Primal Bowie and sheath - The Wasteland Crow Project

2011-10-20T19:37:00.000-07:00

The brown-handled primal Bowie I had listed for sale was bought, and the customer asked if I had a recommendation for getting a sheath made. Of course, I recommended Noah Legel of Wasteland Leatherwork. As usual, Noah delivered!

Check out more pictures, including work in progress shots, at The Wasteland Crow Project , the collaboration of our work.

Hunter's bush sword

2011-10-09T19:53:00.000-07:00

This one was commissioned by a fellow who goes bow hunting in Colorado. He tells me that it seems every deer or elk that he shoots ends up in the thickest patch of brush they can find. He needed a relatively short, capable blade to aid in extracting them from the tangle, split some firewood, and possibly quarter out a game carcass. He liked what he saw in the Youtube video I shot of this blade:

Taking that as a general starting point, I decided on a blade between 13 and 14 inches in length, with a slight drop for chopping power while still being able to handle the whippy, thorny vines and branches. This is what I forged out:

I checked with him to make sure that he like what he saw, and to see whether he wnted me to take a bit of the drop out or round the top of the clip rather than have it angular. He approved, so today I finished cleaning up the profile, filing the bevels and false edge, and am in the process of heat treating it.

Ready to heat treat after grinding, filing, tweaking, and filing some more:

After triple quenching in veggie oil:

It's currently in its second tempering cycle out of three. The steel is 5160.

I've seen pictures of historical hunting swords built along these lines, though with longer blades. It always seemed to me that it would be easier to dispatch game with a stab than chopping, which is what this design seems aimed at. It occurred to me while I was working on that that perhaps those types of hunting swords were designed for the same purposes as this, namely extracting game from tangled branches and brush, as well as camp chores and quartering the carcass. Anyone know for sure about this?

Bush sword put through its paces

2011-10-02T23:16:00.000-07:00

This was the bush sword I traded for a bullwhip a few months ago. Tony has been giving his bush sword (and his arm) a workout!

"While out scouting for deer sign, I found the cottonwood that had been blown over the trail earlier this year. It was still alive since the leaves are green and the roots are half in the pond. The way it was laying was the roots are at the pond 20 feet from the trail. The trail is about 10 feet wide with a bank that goes down 10 feet to a small creek. the other bank is a good 30 feet away where the top of the tree is. So, the tree was about 60+ feet.
I thought I would give Stormcrow's BushSword and my arm a good workout. I'll let the pics do the talking.
Here it is just after beginning. I did a few chops before thinking about snapping pics.

After 5 minutes:

After 20 minutes and a small break it started popping and creaking like it was going to give way:

After the 20 minutes and 5 more chops it snapped.

I then worked at it for 10 more minutes to get it all the way down.

Overall, the BushSword performed better than I expected at chopping through a large tree. I did not measure the trunk, but it is the biggest I've chopped through with a machete. Being cottonwood, and green, helped a bunch, but it was no small task for a big bladed knife. I thought that the wrapped handle would tear up my hand, but it did not. The edge held up really well. I ran it across my sharpening steel a few licks and it was as good as new.
Well Done, Stormcrow, for a magnificent blade!

Tony "

I'm quite thrilled to see my work tackle such a big task and pull it off so well. That's what I make 'em for, to be good brush tools. I've never tried to take on a tree this big with my blades before. Cottonwood is soft, but that is still a lot of chopping!

Saxet Gun Show

2011-09-28T21:42:00.000-07:00

If you're going to be in San Antonio this weekend, I'll have a table at the Saxet Gun Show at the San Antonio Events Center. I'll have some blades, some non-blades, some pictures, and will be sharing the table with Tobin Nieto, another Neo-Tribal Metalsmith.

Hope to see you there!

Schedule:

Saxet Gun Show

Map:

San Antonio Events Center

Bush sword in the works

2011-09-28T21:41:00.001-07:00

This one is being made for a very patient member of a forum in trade for a Hay Budden anvil.

The blade is approximately 16 inches long, with a false edge, integral guard, and double choils/finger notches. They would be great for choking up for carfully knocking small limbs off of a pole to smooth it up or other similar tasks. Triple hardened in veggie oil, multiple temper cycles. I'm working out a small warp right now. Long blades tend to warp during heat treatment, and the closer you forge to final shape, the more important it is to get it straight without grinding. I'm using a trick that is fairly new to me, flexing the blade a bit past straight with a C-clamp, a flat piece of steel, and a couple of washers for spacers, then give it another tempering cycle. It works well, but sometimes has to be done more than once.

Hopefully when I check on it in the morning, it'll be where it needs to be and I can proceed to wrapping and sealing the handle.

Got other bush swords in the works as well. :D

Dawg Skinner

2011-09-25T22:01:00.000-07:00

A member of a forum who goes by the handle Dawgboy approached me with what he wanted in a knife, and we got down to designing it. After he saw my "primal/tactical" knives, he decided that he wanted a cord wrapped handle. He got to see a sneak preview of the scavenger blades that I posted recently (made from plow disk) to see the new style of cord wrapping and decided that he liked it. I used one of the hunters as a starting point and drew out a sketch, widening the blade and giving it an upswept tip. We made one alteration to it, and he gave me the go-ahead.

Here's what it looked like after I had it blanked out from a piece of plow disk. This is a stock removal blade; the only forging done to it was taking the curve out of it from being a plow disk, and stamping my touchmark in it.

I soaked the blank in vinegar overnight to clean the scale and rust off the blade while leaving the beautiful rust texture in the steel. After grinding, heat treatment, and wrapping the handle with hemp cord over leather slabs and a cotton Turk's head knot sealed in amber shellac, I sharpened it to shaving sharp. And this is what it looked like just before I packed it up and sent it.

Available Work

2011-09-14T09:30:00.000-07:00

This will change depending on what is in inventory. I'll put a link to it under "Some Important Posts". Prices do not include shipping and handling.

Neo-Tribal Dha Daisho:

This is a pair of dha that I made a little while back. They are based on southeast Asian dha, which have a vaguely similar profile to katana, though with very different construction.

Both of these have integral socket handles, which are not traditional on dha (nothing I do is traditional, really). Handles are wrapped in hemp, with cotton cord Turk's head knots, sealed in black shellac. Both of them have spines averaging 1/8" thick. The steel is 5160, triple normalized, triple hardened, and triple tempered.

The big one has an overall length of 27 5/8", a blade length of 19", a three-strand Turk's head knot at the blade end of the handle and a two-strand at the butt end.

The little one has an overall length of 19 3/8", a blade length of 12 3/4", and two-strand Turk's head knots fore and aft.

Price: $400 for the small one, $500 for the big one, $700 for the pair. I think it would be interesting to keep them together, so I am willing to knock $100 off of each if you are willing to buy both.

Scavenger Knives:

The steel of these is plow disk from my family's farm, which works out to be approximately 1080 high carbon steel. They were cut out, the profiles cleaned up, then they were heated and flattened, I stamped my touchmark, and then they were normalized multiple times. Straightening and stamping is all the hammering they've seen. The rest is grinding.

The steel is about 1/8" thick. There is a slab of leather on either side of the tang, extending the full length. The hole at the end of the tang also goes through the leather. Then I wrapped hemp cord on top of the leather, going 'round and 'round through the hole at the butt end before anchoring it. After tying the Turk's head knot at the front of the wrap using black cotton cord, I sealed the wrap with shellac. It ends up being a very comfortable, slightly flexible grip.

The texture on the steel is rust pitting from lying years and years in the dirt under live oak trees. I love the aesthetics of combining the works of nature harmoniously with the works of man.

The Bowie has a 6 1/2" blade with an overall length of 11 3/4". It also has the first triple strand Turk's head knot I've done in a while. The smaller knives have double strand Turk's heads.

Price: $145

The hunter/EDC knives have blades 4" long with overall lengths about 8 1/8".

Price: $125 each.

Sale pending.

The quasi-Nessmuk has a blade 3 3/4" long and overall length of 8 1/4".

Price: $125 Sale pending

Primal Knives:

Forged from Ford F-250 coil spring, multiple quenched in veggie oil and multiple tempered. Cotton cord Turk's head knot, hemp cord wrap, black shellac sealer, shaving sharp edge. 4 1/2" blade, 9" OAL, 1/4" thick at the tang/blade transition.

Price: $135

Forged from Ford F-250 coil spring, multiple quenched in veggie oil and multiple tempered. Cotton cord Turk's head knot, hemp cord wrap, natural shellac sealer, shaving sharp edge. 4" blade, 9" OAL, 1/4" thick at the tang/blade transition.

This one got dubbed "Thunderdome" by another knifemaker. :D Forged from Ford F-250 coil spring, multiple quenched in veggie oil and multiple tempered. Cotton cord Turk's head knot, hemp cord wrap, black shellac sealer, shaving sharp edge. 6 1/2" blade, 11 3/4" OAL, 5/16" thick at the tang/blade transition.

Price: $165

Forged from Ford F-250 coil spring, multiple quenched in veggie oil and multiple tempered. Cotton cord Turk's head knot, hemp cord wrap, natural shellac sealer, shaving sharp edge. 6" blade, 11" OAL, 5/16" thick at the tang/blade transition.

Scavenger Blades

2011-09-12T21:46:00.001-07:00

These are yet another, different direction from how I typically make knives; they're stock removal. :) The steel of these is plow disk from my family's farm, which works out to be approximately 1080 high carbon steel. They were cut out, the profiles cleaned up, then they were heated and flattened, I stamped my touchmark, and then they were normalized multiple times. Straightening and stamping is all the hammering they've seen. The rest is grinding.

The steel is about 1/8" thick. I tried out a new handle wrap method with these, one I have seen several different places. There is a slab of leather on either side of the tang, extending the full length. The hole at the end of the tang also goes through the leather. Then I wrapped hemp cord on top of the leather, going 'round and 'round through the hole at the butt end before anchoring it. After tying the Turk's head knot at the front of the wrap using black cotton cord, I sealed the wrap with shellac. It ends up being a very comfortable, slightly flexible grip.

The texture on the steel is rust pitting from lying years and years in the dirt under live oak trees. I love the aesthetics of combining the works of nature harmoniously with the works of man.

The Bowie has a 6 1/2" blade with an overall length of 11 3/4". It also has the first triple strand Turk's head knot I've done in a while. The others have double strand Turk's heads.

The hunter/EDC knives have blades 4" long with overall lengths about 8 1/8".

The quasi-Nessmuk has a blade 3 3/4" long and overall length of 8 1/4"

I'll definitely be continuing this train of thought.

Neo-Tribal blades... got me thinking...

2011-09-07T23:17:00.000-07:00

These are a bit different from my typical work, and are leading to even more different blades from me in the future.

They all except the little one with the ring are forged from Ford F-250 coil spring, multiple quenched in veggie oil and multiple tempered. Cotton cord Turk's head knots, hemp cord wrap, natural and black shellac sealer, shaving sharp edge. The usual. They are a smidge thicker than I typically do, with the Bowies starting at 5/16" at the blade/tang transition and the utility/EDC knives starting at about 1/4" at the same spot, all tapering distally to the point.

These first two are pretty close to what I've been doing, except for being beefier. 4 1/2" blade, 9" OAL

4" blade, 9" OAL

The Bowies are what have really started the gears turning.

This one got dubbed "Thunderdome" by another knifemaker. :D 6 1/2" blade, 11 3/4" OAL

6" blade, 11" OAL

And this little dude is quite cute. :) This one is a scrap piece of leaf spring left from forging a bush sword, with the thickness at the tang/blade transition 3/16", blade length 2 3/8", and 7" OAL.

So now, looking at the Bowies and all, and with other things going on in my mind to help fuel the gears turning, my mind is contemplating the phrase "primal/tactical". This could turn interesting.

Saxet Gun Show

2011-09-01T20:46:00.000-07:00

Hard to believe a month has already flown by!

If you're going to be in San Antonio this weekend, I'll have a table at the Saxet Gun Show at the San Antonio Events Center. I'll have some blades, some non-blades, some pictures, and will be sharing the table with Tobin Nieto, another Neo-Tribal Metalsmith. Hopefully I will be joined for at least part of the time by my loverly girlfriend as well.

Hope to see you there!

Schedule:

Saxet Gun Show

Map:

San Antonio Events Center

Making a bush sword (at least part of it)

2011-09-01T19:02:00.000-07:00

These were some progress shots taken by the photographer to whom I traded a bush sword (Paul Cruz). This isn't all of the process, of course, but it gives at least some idea of what's involved in making a bush sword.

Processing the steel:

After all the forging is completed, the profile is finalized on a grinder, and the blade has the scale cleaned off, filing the primary bevel:

Heating the blade for the first quench:

This is my favorite picture from the whole photo shoot: :)

The first quench into veggie oil: Note that the camera isn't necessarily showing the color in the steel accurately.

Checking with a file to ensure that the blade hardened properly (it did):

Time to do it again: This happens three times unless there is a warp that requires re-heating to fix.

Many warps (and long blades are more prone to that than short blades) can be fixed without reheating if you work quickly and carefully. There is a short time window after the quench before the steel crystals fully set up, and during that time the blade can be flexed back straight. Here I am doing that using my post vise and my vertical quench tank to flex against:

Who is that handsome devil with the stylishly long sideburns? :D

Better ax pics

2011-08-31T15:02:00.001-07:00

I got better pics of my axes back when I got better pics of my bush swords. I meant to get them put up sooner, but time has flown.

4140 steel, hickory handles. Big 'uns weigh about 20 oz., little 'uns about 16-17 oz.

Forging a Steel Rose

2011-08-22T10:06:00.000-07:00

I commented to a photographer, Sean Stevens, who has just moved in at the complex where my shop is located, that the time that one of my roses is most beautiful is while I am nearing the end of making it, when the flames from the torch go down among the petals and are diffused, coming back up as a second flower of living flame. I said that usually I was the only one who got to see that beauty. He asked if he could shoot the process, and I agreed. I put his beautiful photographs into a slideshow:

It goes really well with Enya's "China Roses". I'd recommend opening this link in a new tab before playing my video: China Roses

And a few of the photos on their own, including my photos of the resulting bouquet of a half dozen steel roses:

Hammer dies

2011-08-20T20:35:00.001-07:00

In amongst other work, I have been updating the dies on my home-brewed Appalachian style "Rusty" power hammer. I'm replacing all of the dies that I had made from railroad track with dies made from brand new 4140. The railroad track dies have served me well and I have gotten a lot of work out of them, but they were beginning to deteriorate and it was time to replace them. I had a good machinist whom I know rough out the blanks, then I gave them the proper radius with my angle ginder, heat treated them, and then welded them onto the baseplates (yes, with proper pre- and post-heating to avoid cracking the heat affected zone). I'm making three sets of dies right now, but so far only have one completed.

A photographer who just moved in next door asked if he could take some pictures of me working and I agreed.

"can't you read the sign?" :)

Tested these out today forging the blade of a bush sword. I need to tweak them just a smidge, but they worked admirably.

Willow leaf and quasi-mandau bush swords

2011-08-12T15:59:00.000-07:00

The latest pair of big blades. Usual details, leaf spring, triple hardened in veggie oil, triple tempered, integral socket handles, hemp cord wrap with cotton cork Turk's head knots, shellac to seal the wraps. Shaving sharp.

Table at the Saxet Gun Show this weekend

2011-08-03T21:08:00.000-07:00

Owner review of bush sword

2011-08-01T18:33:00.000-07:00

Here's what the new owner had to say after playing over the weekend with the bush sword I traded for the bullwhip. Check out the awesome sheath he knocked together for it!

"Last month, Stormcrow on the Hoods Woods forum, made one of his Bush Swords to trade for one of my paracord bullwhips.

I received the Bush Sword Friday after work. Upon opening the box, I knew that what I held in my hands was something I was going to be using for a long time. To describe it to someone who has never held it, I would say it is somewhere between a short machete and a large chopping knife. It has the light weight of the machete, but the strength of the chopper. I know both the machete and the large knife chop stuff, but there is quite a difference between a machete and a Becker BK9. This Bush Sword would fit the place in between the two. This thing came shaving sharp. I actually nicked my finger through the cloth I was cleaning it with after use.
I was too excited to get out the measuring tape to get dimensions. I will post those tomorrow for those interested.

One thing I noticed was, like me, it came to this world naked. Being a hobby-leathercrafter, I had to clothe this big fella. I used 10 oz veg tan leather, added some D-rings, and made a srap to wear either belt or baldric style.

Now for some testing review. My dad recently began removing a fencerow filled with 40 years of trees and brambles. He had a large pile of both green and well-seasoned trees.

The first thing I did was find a branch about 5 inches in diameter. I am not sure of the species. I hacked through this in just a couple of minutes. Each hit dug deep.

I noticed a mostly dry, thumb-sized stick was in the way, so I let the Bush Sword eat. I slashed at it at a severe angle and severed it with one swipe.

Next, I found some really dry pine, and made a fuzz stick. With the Bush Sword being a light as it is, it offers many holding options. I used every part of the blade to make the fuzz stick, just to see what options I had.

Overall, I am really impressed with this primal little giant.
Tony"

Another bush sword trade

2011-07-29T18:12:00.000-07:00

While I have done all right getting the general idea of my blades across with my photos, I'm certainly no photographer. I will put together a relatively decent composition, but my camera will not really capture all that is going on.

Well, I traded a bush sword for some photography. :D These are all pieces that have been up before, but they are looking much...better now.

This is what I traded:

And this is what I got:

More forthcoming. :)

Get a grip!...on an integral socket handle. :)

2011-07-28T19:26:00.000-07:00

I've recently had a couple of people asking about a longer socket handle to be able to get a two-handed grip on it. Not trying to dissuade anyone from a longer grip, but I just wanted to demonstrate that by making use of the generous choil I like to put on 'em, one can get a pretty solid hand-and-a-half grip on all of the bush swords I've made recently. Even with gorilla paws like mine.

From the shortest...

...to the longest.

See?

These are intended for one-handed wielding, but they are capable of two-handed chopping if need be. I wouldn't use this kind of a grip to stab, though. :(

Thanks! :)

Official adoption of the term "bush sword"

2011-07-25T18:45:00.000-07:00

With my large socket-handled blades, I've gone back and forth between calling them "machetes" and "bush swords". I've been giving it some thought, and I've decided to officially settle on the term "bush sword" for what I make. Here's the reasoning:

I've spent much time clearing brush. I've used primarily machetes, axes, and billhooks for this task, and love each of the tools for their own different approach that allows the user to tackle just about any brush problem between the three of them. One of the major things I wanted to be able to do when I began blacksmithing was to make my own machetes.

The machete is one of the most useful brush tools available. It is also typically the cheapest and most poorly made. A well-made machete will tackle jobs that you would normally reach for an ax to do, while still whacking through whippy, thorny tangle that would likely slide up your ax handle and rip your hands to hamburger if you tried it. Many of the machetes that you come across in stores in this country are uncomfortable, poorly shaped, and only have the slightest beginning of a bevel, without even attempting to come to an edge. Even some of the more expensive of these cheap tools require extensive re-working to get a satisfactory edge. Machetes, for all their usefulness, have a bad connotation.

So now that I am able to make my own machetes, I find that what I make is vastly different from what one typically thinks of when hearing the term. They are built on a different principle, with a somewhat thicker, shorter blade and a profile and multiple distal tapers that create a powerful chopping blade that still deals handily with the thin, whippy, thorny branches that would simply bounce out of the way of an ax before slapping back at the tool user. They also tend to use integral socket handles, which I first discovered when bladesmith Tai Goo began to use them. His point of reference was the blades made and used by the Igorot headhunters of the Philippines. Since then, I have discovered it is a multi-cultural thing, covering much of eastern Asia and also found in Oaxaca, Mexico. I'm sure there are more places that make use of them than I am aware of.

Looking at the various Filipino blade designs, one sees a dual purpose to many of them. They are both tools for agriculture and working in a jungle environment, and simultaneously effective weapons for fighting.

At the same general time I learned of integral socket handles, I became aware of the term "bushcraft", used to describe (according to the Oxford dictionary) "skill in matters pertaining to life in the bush". I would define it as I have seen it applied as something along the lines of "a philosophy of outdoorsmanship focusing more on individual skills and quiet particiapation in nature than on gear". Your mileage may vary. Gear is of course important to bushcrafters, but they try to use less of it and to make sure that what they do have is comfortable, functional, and of high quality. Hand crafted gear from natural materials is generally preferred when possible.

Combining all of these ideas, you can see where the term "bush sword" would grow. I didn't coin the term and I don't remember where I first saw it, but I think it fits well with what I am trying to do: make beautiful, quality hand tools with a definite capability of being effective weapons, using natural materials where possible. Whether traveling through a jungle in South America or fighting your way through an onslaught of zombies, one of my bush swords would be equally handy and fitting.

So there you go. I'm callin' 'em as I see 'em. Bush swords. :)

Bush sword traded for a bullwhip

2011-07-25T18:39:00.000-07:00

A member of the Hoodlums forum posted a picture of a bullwhip that he had braided for himself. I immediately asked if he would consider trading one for a bush sword. He was equally happy to do so as I was to get one of his whips. I forged out the blade from leaf spring, spread the handle preform to get ready to roll it, then set it aside for a couple of days. I ended up using the preform to demonstrate socket-rolling for the June meeting for the Balcones Forge blacksmith group that I hosted in my shop, which was the reason I had saved it in the first place. The demonstration went well, and I rolled a rather nice socket.

Here's what the bush sword looked like after forging and clean-up grinding on the profile.

Then I had a series of unexpected delays hit me. The Hoodlum worked at his whip diligently and got it sent to me in the latter part of June. Turns out it is only the second one he has made. The core is 14AWG electrical cord, with the outer layers two-tone paracord. This thing cracks like a pistol going off if you know what you're doing with it, and raises a nice welt if you don't. :D Unfortunately I fall into the latter category, but I'm getting a little better at it.

Finally, I caught up with other stuff and got the bush sword finished. False edge, filed bevel, multiple quenches in veggie oil and multiple tempering cycles, hemp cord handle wrap with cotton cord double Turk's head knots sealed in amber shellac, sharpened until it shaves hair and slices through the tiny whippy branches smaller around than a toothpick.

And finally, a full set of gear for the eccetric archaeologist gentleman adventurer or cattleman on walkabout.

The bush sword is packed up and ready to go out in the morning mail.

Mean-looking blade

2011-07-22T08:38:00.001-07:00

Just delivered this yesterday. The customer's request was: "Maybe something 12" long or so, forge finish and mean looking."

Here's what I came up with:

The blade is right at 12", and it is appropriately mean-looking. Forged leaf spring, multiple quenches in veggie oil, multiple tempering cycles, integral socket handle, hemp cord wrap, cotton cord double Turk's head knots at either end, sealed in black shellac.

He just couldn't wait to get it home and try it out on the feral bushes in his back yard. He had to whack at a cardboard tube.

This is a light, fast blade, as he commented. I like leaving a customer with a grin on their face as they heft their new blade. :)

Sheath for Caiaphas Ham Bowie

2011-07-16T22:28:00.000-07:00

Here's the sheath that Luke Swenson made for the Ham Bowie. Gorgeous work on his part, as is typical.

With the customer's permission, I am quoting his comments to me about the knife:

"I was absolutely stunned when Luke finally let me have the knife at Ron's house. He tried to get me to beg for it, but I didn't mention the knife until he said he had better let me see it. He also told me that if I wanted a knife with a full sized handle that he could make one. He made a very nice sheath and steel pouch for it also. It is a beautiful package.
I love the knife and showed it to everyone who would stand still at EOTW. You have certainly outdone my expectations.
One day a storm rolled in with rain and lightening and I noticed a hole in the debris hut I was staying in at EOTW. Out came the knife and I cut some hay and patched the roof. Also I was prep cook for Dave Dennis and did a lot of slicing and dicing. It functioned exceptionally."

That's exactly what one likes to hear from a customer! Thanks, Dave, and enjoy! :)

P.S. - The "full sized handle" crack from Luke is because the handle of the original is very short, only 4" long, and I made this one 4 3/4", still shorter than I typically do, but in pretty close proportion to the original.

Small hand ax

2011-06-30T11:01:00.000-07:00

This ax was commissioned after the customer saw the one I had made for myself. I'd say it rides the border of being a tomahawk, which is appropriate.

4140, vinegar etch, hickory handle.

The satisfied customer.

Hamming it up for the camera. :)

Hammer poll tomahawk

2011-06-30T10:19:00.000-07:00

This one is on its way to the customer. Its overall length is about 17.5", with a cutting edge just under 3" wide, and the inner curve of the beard sharpened. Head forged from 1" square 4140, etched in vinegar after heat treatment to darken it, handle is hickory.

Balcones Forge meeting

2011-06-22T20:24:00.000-07:00

Anyone near San Antonio, TX this Saturday, the June Balcones Forge meeting will be at my shop. Details here:

June Newsletter

Hope to see you there!

Blades for The End of the World

2011-06-20T22:01:00.000-07:00

While a lot of knife makers have been getting ready for the Blade Show in Atlanta, I've been flogging to get stuff ready for The End of the World...primitive skills gathering in Idaho, put on by Ron and Karen Hood's Hoodlums forum. :D I was not able to attend myself, but Luke Swenson offered to take up there whatever I was able to make and take care of sales for me. Luke left early, so Ghostwolf, Charlie of Two Wolves Outdoor supply, generously offered to take my inventory up for me. Much appreciation for these fellows! I really enjoyed getting to meet Charlie briefly and chat with him a bit.

Here's what I was able to get together:

1.) Six socket-handled big blades. These are all forged from leaf spring, multiple hardened in veggie oil and given multiple tempering cycles. Handles are hemp cord wrap with cotton cord Turk's head knots and amber or black shellac sealer. Each one has a handle long enough that, in conjunction with the large choil, one can use it for a two-handed swing, or at least hand-and-a-half if you have gorilla paws like mine. Four of these are almost willow-leaf saber profiles, and I would consider them more of a bush sword than a machete. The other two are Southeast Asian style blunt-ended choppers.

2.) Six axes. These are forged from brand new 4140 and hardened in commercial quench oil. After heat treatment, I brushed off the loose scale and gave them a light etch in vinegar to darken them. The three on the longer handles all have heads just under 20 ounces, while those on the shorter handles have heads 16-17 ounces. I bought a dozen commercial hickory handles of each size, only to discover when they arrived that they were overly massive and even with my large hands were very uncomfortable. It felt like trying to hold a tree trunk! So each handle was carefully cut down, ground, rasped, and sanded to probably about half of their original mass, leaving comfortable, ergonomic shapes that are still plenty strong. The profiles of the handles were also changed, ending up looking quite a bit different than what I purchased, and thankfully feeling a lot different as well. They were given a light stain and oiled.

3.) Two shorter socket-handled knives and a work knife. Leaf spring and 5160, respectively. Luke really likes the longer of these two socket-handled knives. :) I had hoped to get some more of the work knives finished, but slap-dab ran out of time.

4.) Four personal survival kit knives. A more substantial solution than putting a razor blade in your Altoids tin PSK. Two-finger grip, and shaves hair nicely. Made from plow disk, hardened in veggie oil, with high-visibbility orange nylon cord wrap sealed with epoxy. Charlie was sure eyeballing these. :D

5.) Small game gigs. Made from agricultural coil spring, hardened in veggie oil. You can lash it to a pole to gig fish, frogs, squirrels, etc., and the blade is large enough and sharp enough to process the critter aftewards.

6.) A sharp-nosed mouse. Little two-finger skinner with a nose, ears, and a tail. :) Made from plow disk, hardened in veggie oil, hemp cord and shellac wrap, Kydex sheath.

And finally, the reusable crate I had made to transport it in. I based it loosely off an old rocket box I have, but scaled up. There's a small chamber on one end to keep the small stuff in. I need to stencil "Helm Enterprises, Forging Division" across the front now.

And now, being very tired, I shall sleep. :D Thanks again to Luke and Charlie for their help!

Caiaphas Ham Bowie knife reproduction

2011-06-06T14:31:00.000-07:00

I just completed this knife for a customer and it's ready for knifemaker Luke Swenson to make a sheath for it. This is a reproduction of the Caiaphas Ham knife that hangs on the wall of the Long Barracks at the Alamo, just a couple of miles or so from my shop. Ham was a friend of the Bowie brothers, and was given this knife by the knife nut of the family, Jim's brother Rezin. No one knows for certain what the knife used by Jim Bowie in the Sandbar Fight looked like, but the description given (guardless butcher knife made from an old file, overall length no more than 12 inches) seems to match fairly dead-on with the Ham Bowie, leading me to speculate that there is a slim chance that the Ham Bowie and the Sandbar Fight Bowie may well be one and the same. I don't know if anyone else holds this theory, though.

The customer wanted the knife not only for its historical interest, but because he recognized the value of its shape in processing out game.

There is a good picture of the original on page 79 of the June 2011 issue of Blade magazine, showing both a profile view and a good view of the spine, showing how it is pinched in and how the tang tapers. I had it open while working on the knife in order to get as close to the original's shape as I could. I also had a picture that the customer sent me and some basic dimensions graciously provided by one of the Alamo's upper curators.

This reproduction is forged from 5160 spring steel, filed by hand, differentially hardened in vegetable oil, and given multiple tempering cycles. The handle slabs are mesquite, with brass pins offset like the original. This was actually the first slab handle I have done! The blade shaves hair quite nicely.

Although I tried to get as close to the original as I reasonably could, I'm sure Luke will be making a much better sheath than the original. :)

Putting my blades to work

2011-06-06T13:26:00.000-07:00

I've been helping clear some brush lately. It's something that I've done since I was a kid around the family farm, so I have plenty of experience in how to cut the stuff. This time was unique for me, though. All of the tools used were ones I had custom made: an ax, a machete, and a Southeast Asian-style blunt-ended chopper (similar to the Rambo IV knife but better made than the officially liscensed product). The brush was pretty thick, a mix of mountain cedar, wild persimmon, some kind of whippy bushes that spread all over, and briars, narture's barbed wire. I spent a solid six hours working at it all by myself, and I covered more ground than I ever have before while clearing brush. I went through about three canteens of water and twice broke the ax handle because I overstruck.

I am really pleased with how my tools performed. They worked better than any of the commercially made axes or machetes that I've used for the same kind of task. Held good edges, and the ax survived accidentally splitting several good-sized rocks with minimal chipping to the edge.

Here's footage I shot afterwards. Not sure if it gives a good idea of how much area this entailed or not, but it was quite a bit for one man to do in less than a full day.

Garden hoes and camp axes offered for sale

2011-05-25T22:06:00.000-07:00

Due to a number of inquiries since posting them, I'm adding garden hoes and camp axes to my price guide.

A garden hoe, forged from a single piece of spring steel, hardened and tempered, is $65 for the head alone, $80 for the head with a handle fitted, shipping not included. The necks on these hoes will be beefier than the one I made for myself.

A camp ax of this approximate size is $150, shipping not included.

Camp ax

2011-05-25T08:59:00.000-07:00

I completed this two nights ago. It's for myself to help clear brush, but it's a good camp ax size. It's forged from heavy duty pickup axle, cleaned up by grinding, and heat treated. The handle is kind of hastily done, shaped down from a cruiser ax handle.

I'm still going to play some with the grind of the bevel.

I think it has darn good-looking lines. Must be the sideburns on it. :) Had two folks already order one for themselves just from seeing it in my shop. Gotta get busy!

Purple heart on a knife for a Purple Heart Vietnam Vet

2011-05-25T08:32:00.000-07:00

This knife was ordered by a Vietnam vet. He wanted a small utility neck knife with some self defense capability. He liked the knife I made for my girlfriend, so we went with a scaled-down version with a forge finish. When I saw his Purple Heart license plates, I suggested using purple heart wood for the handle. He liked the idea, and added that he'd like to incorporate some antler. He brought an antler in, we talked it over and settled on a design.

The blade is pretty small. It's forged from 5160, with a forge finished double guard. The sheath is made by knifemaker Luke Swenson since I don't work leather. As soon as Luke found out the customer was a Vietnam veteran, he dropped the price to half, and when he found out he was a Purple Heart, he said he'd make it for free. I was unable to financially be as generous, but I charged the minimum price. The customer was very pleased, and ended up giving each of us a small abstract painting from a series he had painted (he's an artist) in gratitude. Mine's orange, predominently. :) I like it!

The customer wanted a neck sheath. Luke built one that could be rigged with a neck thong or could be worn on a belt.

The customer was very happy with what we made for him.

I have the technology...to make my own garden tools!

2011-05-22T14:24:00.000-07:00

I currently live in an apartment not far from my shop. I don't have a garden, but there is a bit of a yard, and it grows a lot of grassburrs. If you aren't familiar with these, count yourself lucky. They are resilient plants and their seeds are little spheres covered with spikes that have microscopic barbs. These can easily drive deeply enough into unsuspecting flesh to draw blood and hurt like the devil to pull back out. The seeds grow in clusters, and when dry will scatter at the slightest disturbance, spreading themselves and attaching to anything mobile so they may come to soil further afield. These end up in my carpet, where they are suddenly encountered with my bare feet.

So I need to hoe the plants in my apartment's yard before they can produce seeds. I didn't have a hoe. The ones available for sale at Home Despot and similar stores are heavy, ugly, with blades at the wrong angle, likely as not made in Communist China, and generally unsatisfactory.

Good thing I have a power hammer.

This is what I forged out last week. It is forged from a single piece of scrap leaf spring that I had in my shop. I hardened and temepred it, and managed to find a handle to put it on (it was actually more difficult to find the handle than to make the head because stores expect you to buy a new tool rather than replace a handle, a sure sign of our degenerating civilization ;) ). It is held on by friction at the moment, but will be receiving a screw to help hold it on if it becomes loose.

It's lightweight, is at the correct angle for use, and is much more interesting and beautiful than what I could have found in a store. It's almost sculptural in form. And most importantly, it works well.

Forged stand for carved wooden element

2011-05-22T08:04:00.000-07:00

I was put in contact with an interior decorator who had a carved piece of architectural woodwork for a client to display on her mantle and needed a stand for it. After consulting with the client a bit and looking at the wood, this is what I made for it. The steel is textured with tooling on the power hammer, and has been painted black.

Integral handled hunting sword

2011-05-22T07:56:00.000-07:00

Finally finished this up. Added more red ink to the handle, gave it more layers of clear shellac, and put something of an edge on it. Not as sharp as I typically do; unlike most of my other work, this is more of an art piece, and I'd rather not have accidental cuts happen while it's on display.

A closeup showing that the handle is indeed an integral socket:

And showing the full length of the handle. That's a plug of pecan wood on the end, sealled with black shellac.

I gave it to my brother in appreciation for his help through the years. He seemed to really like it!

Custom integral socket handle machete

2011-05-17T14:15:00.000-07:00

This one is ready to be picked up by the customer. He's clearing a section of his property, which is heavily covered in cedar and briars. This will be seeing action in that regard.

The blade is around 16" long, with an unsharpened false edge. The steel is brand new 5160, multiple hardened in veggie oil prior to multiple tempering cycles. Handle is wrapped in hemp cord with cotton cord double Turk's head knots at the ends, all sealed with black shellac.

Since briars were a major reason for the commission of the machete, the design is pointed more toward slashing than the short, recurved machete with a scabbard I posted recently. It'll still chop like an ax, don't get me wrong!

A look at the socket prior to being wrapped:

It's built for a righty, with the seam toward the fingers.

A closer look at the end of the socket which is rolled over:

I always enjoy making a good using tool. There are subtleties in physics and biomechanics that have to accounted for that cannot be understood fully unless you use tools yourself. And using a good tool like that is an especial pleasure as well. They just kind of sing to you is the best way I know to put it.

Custom machete with wooden scabbard

2011-05-13T12:31:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted any new work for a while. Been busy during that time, though. Some of what I've been working on will be posted later.

This short custom machete is ready to ship to its owner now. It has a 13.5" blade forged from leaf spring and was hardened multiple times in veggie oil prior to multiple tempering cycles. It has an integral socket handle wrapped in hemp cord, with a cotton cord double Turk's head knot at the front, all sealed with amber shellac.

Here it is prior to heat treatment:

It ended up with a bit more recurve.

I tested it out on some dead hackberry, which is never easy to cut, prior to sharpening. Here's the video of that:

Then I built a scabbard for it out of padouk wood. The scabbard is ambidextrous and has multiple holes for a variety of carrying and accessory mounting options. The overall package is light, and the blade is very lively in the hand, although as you can see it will easily tackle big chores.

And now that it's actually sharp, let's see what it will do:

Sold!

2011-04-27T22:02:00.000-07:00

The two little work knives have sold. Thanks!

Neo-Tribal Bowie and work knives for sale

2011-04-06T13:18:00.000-07:00

Three knives that I made are up for sale. Everything on the knives is either recycled or natural material, non-toxic, and made by an American craftsman. They ship shaving sharp.

1. A socket handled camp knife in what I term my Walkabout Bowie pattern. Forged from a truck spring, differentially heat treated, multiple quenched in veggie oil. Handle is wrapped in hemp cord sealed in amber shellac, with a cotton cord double Turk's head knot sealed in black shellac. Blade is approximately 9" long, spine is a hair over 1/4" thick at its thickest point, and blade is 1 11/16" wide at the widest point. The profile and multiple distal tapers put the widest, thickest part of the blade right above the chopping sweet spot and the overal profile of the knife has an elongated sine wave to it, which makes for a powerful chopper. The socket handle is very strong and comfortable.

Price: $200 plus $10 shipping and handling in continental US.

2. Neo-tribal work knife. Forged from brand new 5160 drop from a spring shop. Differentially heat treated, multiple quenched in veggie oil. Handle wrapped in hemp cord sealed in amber shellac, single Turk's head knots in cotton cord at either end. Blade approximately 4 1/2" inches long, 9" overall.

Price: $100 plus $7 shipping and handling in continental US.

3. Neo-tribal work knife. Forged from brand new 5160 drop from a spring shop. Differentially heat treated, multiple quenched in veggie oil. Handle wrapped in hemp cord sealed in black shellac, single Turk's head knots in cotton cord at the butt end, double Turk's head up front. Blade approximately 4 5/16" long, 9 5/16" overall.

Price: $100 plus $7 shipping and handling in continental US.

Power hammer tooling and texture samples

2011-03-24T18:31:00.000-07:00

I made some texturing tools for my home-brewed hammer this week, and used them to help provide some samples to an architect for a potential upcoming job.

The first tool was made from a dome-headed bolt used to hold sections of railroad track together. I found it mostly buried in the dirt near the tracks that run by my shop, heavily corroded and pitted by rust. I cut the head off, welded it to the end of a length of thin mild steel strap, bent the strap to make a spring, and had my tool:

It fits into the auxilliary tool holder on my hammer's quick-change die holder. The bottom die is just a scrap piece of 1" plate, which rests even with the top of my die holder. I need to make an actual completely flat bottom, but mostly just to make it fit in the holder better since this scrap is a bit smaller than the holder. Works really well for using tools, upsetting, etc.

Then I used the tool to make another tool. I took a couple of scrap pieces of 1"x3" mild steel bar, welded on rebar handles, got them hot, and passed them under the bolt head tool, and now had the texture transferred to the flat bar.

After rounding the edges off, I welded these two onto a piece of wide, thin strap, bent it into a U, welded on a shank to fit the auxilliary tool holder, and had a spring texturing swage. When I have my main flat dies completed, which have tool-holding holes drilled in them (don't know if there is a name for that system of holding tooling on), I'll cut them off of the spring and turn them into die-cap tools. As is, it does a very nice job on 1" round.

I love this texture!

I also used the bolt head tool to texture some 1/4" plate before cutting out topographic shapes and plug welding them together. The plate began to cup upwards under the hammer, so I flattened it back out with my press after texturing.

I see the bolt already starting to flatten out some, so I think my next step will be to use it to make a die out of some truck axle that I can harden and use to make new texturing dies as needed.

The samples as delivered to the architect yesterday:

All of the samples not made on the new texture dies were made using my combination dies torched out of a section of railroad track. The octagonal one reminds me of rock formations like Devil's Tower and the Giant's Causeway, so I didn't try to make the faces all even, just smooth. The look for the ironwork is supposed to be raw and primal anyway. The two with the "Dark Tower of Barad-dur" textures are only slightly different from each other. They were the ones the architect liked best.

Today I forged out a quick sample of half a door pull from 1 5/8" round. The amount of offset, the shape of the flattened portion, and the exact texture aren't necessarily what the final would look like, but they give an idea of what can be done. Most of the forging was done on my hammer, and the rest with the press.

Having a power hammer is sure a game changer! Even if it looks a bit rough.

Tobin Hill Art Fair

2011-03-07T22:25:00.000-08:00

For those of you in the San Antonio area, I will have my first booth at an art fair this Saturday. It is the First Annual Tobin Hill Art Fair, located at the Josephine Theatre at 339 W Josephine Street from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. I'll have roses, candle holders, blades, sculpture, and some nifty gardening and barbecuing gear as well. Hope to see y'all there!

Bouquet of Steel Roses

2011-03-03T14:36:00.000-08:00

This was a commission that fell in my lap right at the last minute, Saturday afternoon prior to Valentine's Day on Monday. A man who was touring the Hausmann Millworks where my shop is located saw some of my steel roses and ordered a dozen of them, to be finished on Valentine's Day. It took about all I could do and a bit of help from a friend, but I managed to get them completed on time.

Altogether the bouquet weighs around twelve pounds. The customer reported that his wife loved them. I didn't have time to take any pictures before they left my shop, so he kindly took these pictures of them in his home for me.

Test run of an unsharpened custom machete

2011-02-25T19:05:00.000-08:00

This short machete/large camp knife got called into service before it had gotten to see a whet rock. I think it did really well. I had a Cold Steel Latin machete and a Norlund Hudson Bay pattern ax (that's a good ax!) that could use its edge touched up and the handle better fit. My machete did better than either and consequently, I used it almost exclusively.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lxq1q5LfSnE

Now for a scabbard and sharpening! More footage after that.

Neo-Tribal blade for a KITH

2011-02-22T19:27:00.000-08:00

This is a little blade I banged out as a demonstration peice for a buddy of mine. I'd show him the steps on my knife, then he'd follow with his. I then used it to demonstrate filing and heat treatment for a student. I decided it would make a good entry for a Knife in the Hat exchange on the Hoodlums forum, so I threw my name in the hat.

The steel is differentially heat treated 5160 triple hardened in veggie oil. The handle is hemp cord for the main wrap, cotton cord for the Turk's head knot, and amber shellac to seal it. It's shaving sharp and ready to ship. :)

I took pics of it in a local park (second oldest public park in the U.S.) and tried three different backgrounds. Which makes for the best photo?

Winter Count inventory- Neo-Tribal blades

2011-02-13T20:21:00.000-08:00

Knife grinder Luke Swenson offered to take any knives I might have ready out to Winter Count primitive skills gathering in Arizona when he went. This is what I got ready to send with him.

The small knives (except for the top one, which is an old commissioned piece whose customer disappeared) are all forged from brand new 5160 drop from a spring shop (actually sold as 5160 alloy, not just guessing that it might be). They're differentially heat treated, triple hardened in veggie oil, and their handles are wrapped with shellac-sealed hemp with cotton Turk's head knots.

The big knives are forged from salvaged pickup and heavy truck spring, differentially heat treated, triple quenched in veggie oil. They all have integral socket handles, but the Walkabout Bowie has hemp and cotton while the other two are straight cotton. Shellac seals it all in.

Luke sent me a message this morning saying that one of the little guys had already sold. Woohoo! Thanks, Luke!

Neo-Tribal Hunting Sword update

2011-02-13T19:50:00.001-08:00

Just a quick-and-dirty update. The sword isn't quite finished (needs sharpened and a few more layers of shellac on the handle), but it's on display at the On and Off Fredericksburg Road art show here in San Antonio.

Cotton cord wrap and Turk's head knots, pecan wood plug at the end of the socket handle, red ink on the main wrap, black shellac on the Turk's heads and the pecan, then clear shellac over all the handle. Its stand is the left-over piece of Texas ebony from the Walkabout Bowie.

Valentine's Day Roses That Will Never Wilt

2011-02-02T13:12:00.000-08:00

It is traditional on Valentine's Day to give your sweetheart gifts as tokens of your love. Typically this takes the the form of such things as flowers and chocolates. Flowers fade and chocolates are swiftly consumed. The enjoyment they bring becomes a memory.

But a flower that will never wilt remains a reminder of the love you share throughout the year.

I am offering 10 of these steel long-stemmed roses for sale. This one is the first; the others will be finished up in the next day or two. They are individually forged, each one a unique sculpture. They have been given a layer of clear coat to prevent rust.

This is a very small number and will be sold on a first-come-first-served basis. Price is $100 US each plus $10 shipping inside the US.

Walkabout Bowie dressed in Texas ebony

2011-01-31T19:46:00.000-08:00

I just handed this over to the customer. He and I both are very pleased with this knife. It's impossible to get the full impact without holding it in your hand, but everyone who has held it has immediately gotten a big ol' grin on their face. This thing feels great.

The point of balance is about where the cutting edge starts ahead of the choil, and it really begs to chop. The drop in the handle, elongated sine wave curve to the whole design, and distal tapers (thickest point is right above the chopping sweet spot) adds to that as well. At the same time the large belly and aggressive point combined with the half guard makes for something that would stab viciously as well. In addition to general outdoors use, this would be a great hog killing knife for those people who hunt feral hogs with a pack of dogs and a knife. It'd open a wide wound channel and go deep.

The blade is about 9" long, forged from the same leaf spring as the pecan-handled knives I made for my old friend, bevel filed by hand, differentially hardened three times in vegetable oil, and tempered. You can see the quench line, though I rocked the blade up and down in the oil to give a springy middle section, tough point, and hard cutting edge, so the differential nature of the hardening continues below the visible quench line. It's sharpened shaving sharp, as usual. The half guard is forged from a piece of railroad spike, forge finished on the front. The handle is made from Texas ebony, a very hard, dense wood that is kind of halfway between mesquite and desert ironwood. It had a gorgeous figure that darkened quickly, so it is not longer nearly as visible as it had been.

This was the first handle I had ever pinned. It was some stainless steel welding filler rod. Came out nice.

This is what the rest of the chunk of wood looked like. The outside was rotted away, but the heartwood was still solid, though worm eaten and cracked in some places. Thankfully, I found enough good heartwood to make the handle.

This thing sits very comfortably in the hand in variety of grips. Normal general cutting grip:

Extended reach and increased drop for chopping:

Choked up on the choil for finer work:

And the raised spine/clip even facilitates holding it by the blade for fine manipulation of the tip or mincing with the belly:

And the happy customer, a student of mine. He also bought a mandrel to aid in cleaning up socket handles. That's it in his left hand.

Sorry if I'm gushing a bit, but this knife just begs to be used when you hold it. This is actually the second knife with this blade pattern that I've made; the first one has a socket handle and has not yet been sharpened. This is not the last knife in this design that I'll be making. I term it a Walkabout Bowie as it is a knife I would want with me when taking a walkabout.

New progress on hunting sword

2011-01-24T18:38:00.001-08:00

After taking the blades out of the vinegar, washing them off, and cleaning them up with a power wire brush:

Working on filing the edge. I had a fair amount of steel to take off since I was concentrating hard on getting a specific profile, so I didn't forge it down as clsoe to an edge as I like to. I'm using some spring clamps simply becuase they are quicker to change position with than a C-clamp. The C-clamp would have held tighter, but with three of 'em, the spring clamps held it fine.

Filing away.

A closeup look of what the file marks and forge finish look like. My camera is limited, but hopefully this gives an idea.

It's going to be a heck of a chopper. That's an oak pallet, and the blade doesn't have a sharp edge yet. I also whacked it into an MDF west Texas tree stump anvl stump that is starting to come apart, and it sank in deep without much effort.

After grinding and filing in the false edge on the clip, smoothing out a bump on the spine, and tweaking the knuckle guard to give more clearance in case it should turn in your hand. I need to knock off a few sharp corners around the handle and make sure everything is smoothed up as it needs to be, but it is essentially ready for heat treatment at this point. I'm going to get the other two bush swords ready and then heat treat them at one go.

Eating the scale off the hunting sword

2011-01-21T21:49:00.000-08:00

In amongst working on other stuff, I threw together an acid vat to dispose of my foes.... no wait, it is an acid vat, but it's 9% vinegar and it's for eating scale off of long blades so I can file the edges. This should have the hunting sword ready to file by tomorrow (whether or not I'm able to begin filing is an entirely different matter).

The vat is just a shallow tray made from left-over 3/4"-ish plywood that I clamped together and lined with a cut open trash bag.

The second blade in the vat is a wakizashi-ish bush sword with a blade around 14" long and a handle around 7" long. It and this other one that has a wakizashi-ish blade but a curved socket handle that gives it a bit more of a Middle Eastern feel were actually hammered out before the hunting sword.

Something a bit elegant - integral handled hunting sword

2011-01-18T21:58:00.000-08:00

I haven't posted any new work in a while. I've been pretty busy, but it's mostly been work around the shop getting my new power hammer optimized and such. I still have some more of that kind of work to do, but I'm finally getting to put the hammer to good use.

I forged this out today. It's an idea I've had for a while. I've seen blades with integral socket handles and I've seen blades with integral knuckle guards. I've never seen the two together. It took some amount of technical skill to make them. Still have some cleanup work to do, particularly where the knuckle guard meets the blade, but I believe I am finished with the forging aspect.

This will be forge finished, but elegant. It's what a gentleman adventurer would be carrying as he traverses the nuclear-blasted wastelands. The blade is around 20 inches long.

Commissioned Christmas Candle Holders

2011-01-02T11:38:00.001-08:00

That's alliteration!

My buddy who lives halfway across Texas stayed with me about a week after Christmas and helped me do some work on getting my home-brewed power hammer finalized in order to make some candle holders he had commissioned from me to give as Christmas presents. Here's what we came up with:

A set forged from pipe for his soon-to-be-fiance's brother, sister-in-law, and one-year-old:

Another pipe set for my buddy and his girlfriend:

And a pair for the girlfriend's cousin and wife, forged from approximately 2" round:

I love this texture and will be using it on more projects. To me, it makes the candle holders looks like the Dark Tower of Barad-dur. :)

And being a creative fellow himself, my buddy did not sit still while I was working. He made these ladles with riveted copper handles for his girlfriend:

Pecan-handled pair

2010-12-20T13:07:00.000-08:00

This is a pair of knives with some interesting history. They were commissioned by an old friend of mine from public school. One is for himself and the other for his father-in-law. He wanted one to be a bit longer and one to be forge finished and the other satin finished. The steel is leaf spring from his first pickup, and the wood for the handles is pecan because his father-in-law has worked in the pecan business for years.

He changed his mind about which should have what finish after I had already forged them, so I had to leave a few spots of forge texture or grind too much steel away on the shorter one. I also re-forged the long one to get the blade down thinner, where I typically have it for a forge finished blade. This altered the shape a bit, but I liked it and went with it. I haven't done too many trailing tip knives, but think I may do some more now.

I had never used pecan wood as a handle material before and was surprised at how much figure the wood had. It was bit light, but darkened up when I oiled the handles. I like it!

Something I read years ago: "Real Texans know that it's pronounced puh-KAHN. A PEE-can is something that goes under the bed and empties out the winder."

Finished up forged copper baptismal font for church

2010-12-17T20:52:00.000-08:00

I haven't posted a whole lot lately, but it doesn't mean I haven't been busy.

Among other things, I finished up and delivered the copper baptismal font recently. Here's how it ended up after final shaping:

It's approximately 29 3/4" across the inside of the rim.

After cleaning up with muriatic acid:

And after going over it with a ScotchBrite ball chucked up in a drill:

Although shiny, the basin is highly textured, with ripples left from the raising process and hammer marks from sinking it. The church wanted this rather than a smooth, perfect finish. Personally, I really like the textured finish, particularly the ripples, which mirror the ripples of the water.

A steel stand was fabricated for it at another shop, then plated with a bronze patina at a third. Finally, after many months, it was delivered and installed at the church. If you look to the left of the large doors at the back, you can barely see it in this picture:

In addition to being used as a baptismal font, the basin will stand next to the door and hold holy water.

And here I am, looking dirty but pleased to have it in place.

I have a lot more pictures and footage of the process of making it that will be put together into videos and uploaded to my Youtube channel at some point.

I have an Etsy store!

2010-12-10T00:03:00.000-08:00

In time for Chistmas shopping, I have opened an Etsy store! I will be adding more items and a wider variety of items, but for now, check out the inventory I'm starting with:

Forged candle holders! The short ones were upset with my hydraulic press from approximately 2" round bar, and the tall ones were forged on my power hammer and by hand from pipe. Oh, and a steel dish that started out as a 4 1/2" length of the 2" round, but it's already sold to a woman who bought another for herself and this one for her sister.

Pretty exciting stuff! Keep an eye on my store, because I will definitely be keeping it stocked with some interesting stuff.

Helm Enterprises, Forging Division at Etsy

Luke's Zombie Killer Vs. The Pumpkin

2010-11-24T10:43:00.001-08:00

Luke came by again yesterday. The sheath is mostly done, just needs a shoulder strap.

He worked on a companion knife that will ride on the strap across the sheath. Got it forged, filed, and heat treated, and will get a handle on it later.

We also had some cutting fun:

How To Sharpen a Knife Blade to Shaving Sharp...

2010-11-23T17:50:00.000-08:00

...The Simple (Not to Be Confused With Easy) Way, in Three Fits.

Fit the First:

Fit the Second:

Fit the Third:

Finished

2010-11-21T15:24:00.001-08:00

And the finished product:

With the sheath:

In the sheath:

And a close-up shot of the handle. There's more grain visible in the Filipino ebony and the desert ironwood than my camera can capture.

Making it comfortable

2010-11-19T19:36:00.000-08:00

Almost but not quite finished.

So here's how it was this morning:

I rarely make a knife where I don't do something new for the first time. One of the things this go-around was using a fairly aggressive (36 grit, I think) sandpaper wheel on my angle grinder to rough out the handle. In this picture, you can see that I have the sandpaper wheel backed with a worn flapwheel.

This really ate it down in a hurry. Saved a lot of time and clogging at the belt grinder. Had to be careful not to mess up the handle, though.

Then, off to the belt grinder.

After getting the end of the handle fairly close to where I wanted it, I drilled the lanyard hole.

I left myself some wiggle room in thickness so I could grind down past any splintering from the drill coming through the wood. There was a little bit, so I worked on the belt grinder some more.

There was a bump in the Filipino ebony where the index finger goes. I took it out with the four-in-hand rasp before smoothing on the belt grinder.

The lanyard hole was going to be lined with a metal thong tube, the second time I had tried this, and the first time I had used "official" thong tube material.

I tried to flare the ends with some flaring tools I had made and used on the other thong tube, but this was much sterner stuff, and actually began to dig into the flaring tools more than flaring! I ended up peining lightly, which did the trick, then grinding over the outside.

After some more time at the belt grinder, this is where it stands now:

Handle work

2010-11-18T22:14:00.000-08:00

Time for the handle. First off, I cut out the piece I'm going to use from the main block. The first layer in the handle is Filipino ebony.

Then I smooth up the sides and get everything as flat as I can. I use a variety of tools for this, but primarily use wood rasps and my belt grinder. I did try this Harbor Freight mini-plane for the first time. It actually did all right.

After the ends are flat, I drill the hole for the tang and widen it out with a mortising chisel I made form a hay rake tine.

Once it fits right, on to the next layer: osage orange, a.k.a. bois d'arc or the Texanized "bodark". You can see that it starts lemon yellow and ages to a burnt orange.

The same process is followed. Afterwards, I fitted two stainless steel spacers, which was all kinds of not-fun. I finally got them to work out, though, and moved on to the end piece, some desert ironwood. This is very hard, dense, beautiful, and on the expensive side. I think I actually ended up using a piece out of another chunk that I had, but this gives you some idea.

After some initial shaping to cut down on the work needed done after the epoxy has set, here's everything dry-fitted. I am working with the angled saw cut on the ironwood. It's coming out a bit differnt of a handle shape than I drew, but it'll be nice and comfortable once I've shaped it down.

I went ahead and rasped down some of the bulge on the Filipino ebony with a rasp.

Then I took everything apart and cleaned it with rubbing alcohol. I roughed up the tang with a file, giving plenty of surface area for the epoxy to stick to.

I mixed the epoxy on a slick piece of paper (actually a left-over invitation to an art show for one of the artists at the Hausmann Millworks where my shop is located - it was his suggestion) with a little piece of wood I cut. I made sure that each surface was well-slathered with epoxy, applied epoxy to the tang, and let the epoxy run into the tang-holes of each piece of wood. I popped air bubbles in the epoxy of the end-piece, making sure it was filled before I stuck it on the end of the tang.

Finally, I used two blocks of wood and the cross slide table of my Grizzly benchtop mill/drill to compress everything together and hold it overnight. I've never tried this before. I think I like this approach, although a carpenter's clamp might be easier. I actually saw someone post a picture recently doing the same thing using a caulk gun and a block of wood to clamp.

Alcohol-soaked paper towels helped clean up excess epoxy. Tomorrow I'll work on shaping the handle.

Further progress on bushcraft knife

2010-11-15T21:24:00.000-08:00

Got the guard pretty much fitted today. It's copper, an electrical bus bar, actually. I ended up using a different bus bar than what is in the first picture.

If you look under the knife, sitting on top of the bus bar, there's a chisel-looking thing. That's a piece of leaf spring cutoff that I made into a blunt-ended punch slightly smaller than the tang/blade transition on the knife.

Using my hydraulic forging press, I cold-punched the slot for the tang. This was the first time I'd used my press and done it cold. Worked pretty well. Then I sawed it off of the main bar.

I hot-fit my guards. I clamp the blade in the vise with a piece of leather wrapped around, heat the guard, and drive it down with what in blacksmithing circles is called a "monkey tool". In this case, a piece of pipe flattened into an oval cross section on one end. Usually I use the piece of bicycle frame in this picture, but I found the tang was too wide on this one, so I quickly made one a bit larger. Driving the guard down is done with a hammer, but having only two hands, I couldn't show that part. I just pantomimed it, then fired up the torch and did it for reals.

And after it is down all the way:

At this point I hold the guard against the anvil with the tang still in it and hammer from the sides to close up any gap. Then I knock the guard off and straighten it. Now it's ready to do the main cleanup. I actually use a couple of progressions of sandpaper flapwheels on my angle grinder first, then move to the drill-held flapwheel as shown.

After that, I re-fitted it and went to the belt grinder to get the rough profile of the guard done before putting any wood on the handle. I try to minimimze the amount of guard shaping done when the handle is epoxied on since copper especially heats very quickly and can make the epoxy bubble out.

That's it for today.

More detailed look at the new hammer

2010-11-14T17:47:00.000-08:00

I had some folks who wanted a closer look at the mechanism.

Ever wonder how Klingons cut down trees?

2010-11-14T17:36:00.000-08:00

Well now you know. This public service announcement brought to you by Helm Enterprises, Silliness Division.

Test run of the new power hammer

2010-11-13T23:23:00.001-08:00

I finally got my new power hammer wired! This is its first run. It was built by the same cousin who built the hydraulic forging press. It's a modified Appalachian "Rusty" helve hammer utilitizing a spare tire clutch. Very little new material went into making it. It has an 80 pound ram and is running dies made from railroad track caps. More dies and a different die holding system in the future.

The test piece of steel is about 5/8" automobile coil spring.

The Hausmann Millworks mentioned in the video is the creative community where my shop is located, just north of downtown San Antonio, Texas.

Custom bushcraft knife part 2

2010-11-12T23:05:00.000-08:00

And today's update:

The knife taken out of the vinegar and washed off. The vinegar ate the scale off without really affecting the metal. The scale is harder than steel, so it would have worn my file out quickly and made it hard to do the work.

Clamped in the vise, filing the cutting edge. I forge as close as possible to my final shape, minimizing the amount of steel needed to be removed. I could grind what's needed, but I think the file marks go better aesthetically with the more primal look. Like the smoothness of your hammer marks shows your skill at the anvil, the evenness of your file marks shows your skill with a file. I'll be playing with grinding more in the future, and of course I do make satin finished blades now that use a lot of grinding to do, but when doing a forge finished blade, I tend to file my edges for now.

After bringing the edge down to the point where the next step in working the edge is a coarse whetrock, I file the choil. Some folks like choils, some don't. There are functional reasons for both schools of thought and aesthetic reasons as well. Mostly, I like the look of a good choil. It's a nice way to start the edge and not make a blade look like a stock removal project with a ricasso and plunge cut. If I'm making a forged blade, I don't see a reason to make it appear like it was gound from a bar. Well and good to those who do, or to those who are stock removal makers. It's just not the way I go. That's a half-round file I'm using to do this.

Then I clean up the shoulders at the tang/blade transition. Slightly rounded to keep stress risers down. On my small knives, the transition from the tang to the blade is the thickest part of the steel. It tapers distally from there to the point and to the end of the tang. This helps eliminate weakness at this vulnerable area. It also helps keep the balance even between the blade and the handle. Since the tang will be hidden in the wood, I do some grinding here to speed up the work. The grinding marks won't show, and actually provide more surface area later on for the epoxy to grip. Here it is ready to heat treat.

Some steels benefit from multipe heat treatment cycles, others don't. 5160, which is what the spring steel probably is, does benefit. I hardened this one three times by heating it in the tomato can gas forge and quenching in vegetable oil. Veggie oil works about the same as commercial quench oil and is non-toxic. Check for warps and for hardening with a file, then do the next cycle. Each time I quench is at a slightly lower temperature. I differentially harden small blades with an edge quench, giving a hard edge and springy spine. Also, I harden the tip a little softer than the rest of the edge and a little harder than the spine. The tip can undergo a lot of stress, and making it a bit softer will make it a lot tougher and less likely to break when stressed. A few minutes on a whetrock and you'l have it back, rather than having to get the blade re-profiled because the tip snapped off.

You can see the flames coming out of the forge from the oil burning off after the first quench.

After the third quench, I leave it in the oil a few minutes. Then I pull it, do a final check for warps, wipe it down, and sand off the worst of the baked-on oil. No shot of it post-sanding, but here it is post-wipe-down.

Finally, I draw temper in my high-dollar Wal*Mart toaster oven heat treatment furnace. It's now ready for me to do some more cleanup and start fitting the bolster.

Custom bushcraft knife work in progress

2010-11-11T22:43:00.000-08:00

A while back I was contacted by a member of Zombie Squad to have a custom bushcraft/general utility knife made, using the puuko design as our starting point. He showed me some pictures he'd collected off the Interwebz with knife features he liked, I made some sketches, and we agreed on design and price. I started work on it this week. I asked if he would mind me documenting the process, and he said go for it.

This is the sketch that this is all based on. There may be a few changes as the actualy knife is being made (as you'll see), but this is our guide.

The blade began life as a piece of pickup leaf spring. It was actually a relatively small scrap from me cutting out a blade blank earlier. After cleaning up the torch marks with my angle grinder and cutting it to length, I put it in my coffee can forge and commenced to hammering it into shape. I consulted with the sketch and got it fairly close. After cleanup grinding, I found that the angle of the tang to the blade needed changed, I needed to draw the length of the tang out some, and the blade was a half inch longer than the sketch.

I checked with the customer, who said to go ahead with the length the blade had turned out to be. If he had wanted it shortened down to match the sketch, I would have taken some of the blade to forge the tang longer. After tweaking, this is what I ended up with:

The blade is soaking in vinegar to eat the scale off. Should be ready to file the edge tomorrow.

One Night Art Show

2010-11-07T21:20:00.000-08:00

If you live in the San Antonio area, please come to a one night only event: an art show hosted by Michael Imbimbo Inc. Architects (the fellow for whom I'm making the sheet metal stakes) and celebrating the artists of the Hausmann Millworks (which is where my shop is located).

Time: Tuesday, November 9th from 5:30 to 8:30
Place: The Frost Bank Building at Thousand Oaks and US HWY 281

Featured artists:
Rex Hausmann - painter
David Almaguer - stencil artist
Duane E. Hilburn - painter
Jake Stanley - graphic artist
James Helm - blacksmith and sculptor (that's me!)
Kirk Forster - painter
Fernando Andrade - painter and sculptor
Mark Andrew Gelatt, Jr. - sculptor

Also featuring the artwork of Mike Imbimbo, ranging from silk prints to ceramics to raised metal vessels.

Hors d'oerves and drinks.

For more information, contact Lee Imbimbo at: lee.imbimbo@michaelimbimbo.com

Hope to see y'all there!

Mini-stake and holder

2010-11-07T21:09:00.000-08:00

This is the next stake that the architect who ordered the custom sheet metal stake from me needed. This is his idea, a design for working inside a deep vessel.

The holder is clamped in a vise, just like the previous stake. At the opposite end, the bar is forged and machined to half the original size and a hole is drilled and tapped. Then the mini-stake is bolted on and set at the appropriate angle. The angle can be adjusted as need be, and a variety of differently-shaped mini-stakes can be used.

The holder and stem of the mini-stake are mild steel, while the stake itself is hardened and tempered 4140. More of these will be coming.

Knifemaking class from a student's perspective

2010-11-03T23:36:00.000-07:00

One of my current students is documenting the process of making a knife and posting the pics and descriptions on a forum at AR15.com. He's done quite well, and I thought y'all might find it interesting to see it through his eyes.

http://www.ar15.com/forums/topic.html?b=6&f=4&t=326383

Had a visitor today

2010-11-02T21:58:00.000-07:00

Luke Swenson, a knifemaker who usually does stock removal blades, came and visited me at my shop today. He'd had an evil scheme to try his hand at forging a big blade for himself, especially after seeing my Zombie Killer KITH quasi-wakizashi.

This is where we started:

And this is where we ended:

In between was a little of this:

This was the fourth blade he had forged. We did this Neo-Tribal style, with very little stock removal, mostly with files, and really needed very little profile clean-up grinding. The blade is about 12 inches long. He did the majority of the work with my guidance. I rolled the socket handle while he observed, and I showed him how to use the tempering tongs, then handed it over to him.

The blade was triple quenched in veggie oil, selectively tempered by eye using tempering tongs, and then Luke was going to run it through a tempering cycle in his furnace at home. We skated a file off the edge after hardening and flexed the blade pretty good by hand after tempering.

Luke commented that he had not really cared for socket handles before. He had intended to make this a stick tang construction with a wooden handle. After seeing some of my socket handles and feeling them, he decided that he'd like to try one after all. He's very pleased with how this knife has turned out.

More pictures when the handle wrap is done. I'll get a closeup shot of the nifty Spanish notch he filed.

Check out his website: http://www.swensonknives.com/

General Education About Tool Use Part 2

2010-09-21T21:52:00.000-07:00

So in this middle ground of tools between "the tool as art (often seen with custom knives)" and "crappily stamped out by the millions in a Chicom factory", what do you get?

Quite a bit.

The price of a custom tool is higher than that of a mass-produced tool (usually, not always). It's not something you would want to treat as disposable. In exchange for that, however, you should be getting a tool that will fit your hand comfortably, is weighted and balanced beautifully, does the job it was made for quite satisfactorily, and is aesthetically pleasing.

Let's take for example a drawknife. In the days of table saws and bandsaws, not many folks use drawknives any more. However, there are still plenty of areas of fine and general woodworking where no other tool really does the job. The only places I know of to get a drawknife by just walking in off the street in San Antonio, TX are Northern Tools and Woodcraft. Northern Tool's offering is poor at best, with a very rough cutting edge and somewhat less-than-comfortable handle angles. I think it is sold for stripping bark off of lumber, and it may do well at that. For general woodworking like I use a drawknife for, it would take a fair amount of work just to get it to the point where it would cut wood well, and it would still be rather awkward to use. The offerings at Woodcraft go in the opposite direction. They are small specialty tools made to flex. Not all that helpful when you're trying to make an ax handle or a table leg and need to hog wood off.

On the other hand, I have a drawknife that I made as a sample tool for a class I teach. It's a bit rough-looking, but I have used it quite a bit since making it and have been very happy with it. It's forged from a car coil spring, filed entirely by hand with no power tools, and hardened in veggie oil. It will cut off large swathes of wood if I need it to, or shave off tiny feathery curls, all dependent on the way I use it.

The handles are integral socket handles. I've never seen that done on a drawknife; I did that simply to show what could be done on a project like this.

The wooden portions of the handles are made from an old forging hammer handle that had been shortened time and again until it could no longer be used as a hammer handle. The first two Turk's head knots I ever tied help clean up the transition from metal to wood.

So, not the prettiest example of a drawknife, but it: a.)is comfortable to use. b.) is visually interesting. c.)DOES THE JOB BETTER THAN WHAT I COULD EASILY BUY.

A custom-made tool should fit those criteria. Of those three, doing the job better than a commercially made product is the most import, in my opinion. A craftsman who is dedicated to producing a quality tool is constantly holding, turning, smoothing, hefting, etc. He feels how the tool is growing as he makes it and adjusts as needed. It takes time, and time is money, but the end result is a tool that should serve you until you are dead if you treat it well.

As the number of people who use hand tools on a regular basis decreases, the number of people who have the experience of what the difference is between usng a mediocre or poor tool versus a quality tool decreases, and the fewer quality tools become available for sale in non-specialty stores. It becomes harder for those who continue to work with their hands to find anything that will do the job, not only well, but even adequately.

This is true not only for tools that have been relegated to "specialty" status, such as my drawknife example above. Ever look at the axes available in Home Depot? Laughable. I've seen a couple of different people buy True Temper (which at least used to produce good tools) hatchets that had an edge almost an eighth of an inch thick. It took me a while to get decent edges on them. Look back at my student Brian who made an ax for his first project; it cost him some money, but he ended up with a tool that will outperform anything he can buy at a store and will last a lifetime.

Many people think of investments as something that will return money over time. I tend to think of investments as something that will be a pleasure to use and will last my lifetime.

Death of a Wakizashi, Birth of a Tanto Part II

2010-09-21T10:47:00.000-07:00

Here's what we ended up with:

And the video showing (most of) the steps: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYtnHZjxjEY

Death of a Wakizashi; Birth of a Tanto?

2010-09-20T08:41:00.000-07:00

Something one learns in bladesmithing is that sometimes things just don't go well. As I teach my students, "Remember, you can screw it up beyond saving at any point in the process. But if you know what you're doing, you can save quite a bit."

Case in point, this sad ending to a wakizashi that was going well. However, perhaps this is actually the starting point of a tanto instead?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cx1GAXSNlKA

Hybrid khukuri

2010-09-17T21:15:00.001-07:00

This is the work of one of my students under my guidance. It combines a Nepalese khukuri blade with an integral socket handle like those found on Filipino Igorots' blades and on machetes in certain parts of Mexico, a handle construction popularized to a degree in the United States by knifemaker Tai Goo.

The student sread the steel for the handle, but had me roll the socket while he watched the process.

Check out the Youtube video with more pics and details, some forging, and some other projects he's worked on: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmEsobppHv4

His son is working on a machete with a ~20" blade that will also have an integral socket handle.

More Anvil Wrangling

2010-09-16T21:41:00.000-07:00

For the student's block anvils, they have the options of taking them as-cut and doing any cleaning up themselves, having me grind the faces clean, and/or having me weld on some angle iron with holes drilled in it that allows the anvils to be screwed down to a wooden base. This greatly increases the anvil's effectiveness.

One student so far has taken the anvil as-cut, and one has had me grind the face clean and weld on angle iron. Here's the process of grinding.

The surface of the steel is rather rough, and those irregularities show up on any steel forged on it. I started with a regular hard wheel to knock down the scale. This is actually harder than steel and can be very tough stuff. After getting it somewhat down to where the grinding wheel can contact the steel, I switched to a 40 grit sandpaper flapwheel.

After a while (taking breaks to let the hands recover and the grinder cool down), eventually I got to a clean, but wavy surface. The 40 grit flapwheel was almost completely worn out by this point. I knocked down the worst of the waves with the 40 grit, moving quickly so that the high points were knocked down without the disk really digging down into the metal. Finally, I switched to an 80 grit flexible abrasive wheel and smoothed it to an even surface. Not machine precision, but more than satisfactory for the job at hand. I rounded the sharp corners slightly, then added the angle iron to anchor it.

The grinding lines show up a bit exaggeratedly in the last picture. Running your hand across the surface shows it to be pretty smooth. This one is more nicely finished than the block anvils I prepared for my student forging stations, and those have worked out quite well.

Prices for the anvils as-cut are $80. Grinding the face adds $20, and angle iron adds $10.

Custom tools

2010-09-14T10:05:00.000-07:00

This is the first of a series of custom sheet metal forming stakes for a customer who makes beautiful raised copper and silver vessels. It started as a 1.5" square bar of 4140 molybdenum alloy steel. Some forging and much grinding later, it had a shaft of 1" square to clamp in a vise, and the rest had a different radius on each face of the square.

Here it is in the forge, heating up so it can be hardened. You can see that each side is ground to a different radius.

After heating, it was quenched in oil. Unfortunately, my camera was not able to catch the little marbles of blue flame that danced across the top of the oil. It was something to see.

Looks kind of ugly with all the baked-on oil.

Looks a lot prettier with it cleaned off and after drawing temper.

The texture left from the scale of heat treatment can't stay, though. It has to be absolutely smooth. I took it to this level, but the customer finished it out to where he needed it to be for his work.

And the satisfied customer. Now to go work on making the other stakes.

Anvil wrangling

2010-09-12T19:53:00.000-07:00

As a way of helping out my students who are setting up to do forging on their own, I have done a group order in the past for Larry Zoeller burner kits and wool insulation so that they can build their own gas forges. Now I am providing access to inexpensive beginner's block anvils for them as well, the same as the two block anvils I have set up in my shop. It took a bit of wrangling, but they are now cut and ready for pickup.

The anvils began life as two stalks of steel (apparantly mild or thereabouts) roughly 6" x 5" x 60".

This is a lot bigger than anything in my shop can cut, but I cut a deal with a shop that I used to work for to let me use their big bandsaw to cut them into foot-long sections. I came to the shop this Saturday and spent a goodly chunk of the afternoon sawing.

And eventually...

... I got them all cut. There were ten anvils all told, but only nine in this picture because one student loaned me a trailer to get the steel out of the junkyard, and took the first anvil with him.

There are more anvils than ordered at the moment, but now I have them on hand for future students who want them. They need some cleanup and are a bit soft, but work quite well and are easy to repair if dented.

A long short story

2010-09-08T21:15:00.000-07:00

Well, I finished up the story that goes along with the zombie killer wakizashi build. It was a little over 31 pages in Microsoft Word, double spaced. Written a bit hastily, but proofread several times. Read it here:

Escaping the Junkyard

Sinking a copper basin for a baptismal font

2010-09-07T18:58:00.000-07:00

Not everthing I make is sharp and pointy. Case in point, this large copper basin I'm working on for a baptismal font. Details are in the description.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ryk13sW5dZA

New sharp little Neo-Tribal work knife

2010-09-01T19:43:00.000-07:00

This was a little knife I made for a customer who wanted to give it to her father for his birthday/Christmas. She wanted something along the lines of my personal carry work knife, but a scaled-down version.

Car coil spring, forged by hand, primary bevels filed by hand, differentially hardened in veggie oil, spray-on truck bedliner handle, Kydex sheath. The blade is about 3.5" long. It shaves hair quite nicely.

I stamped her dad's initials on the sheath.

I took some in-progress shots. This forged out as beautifully as any of these work knives have. Here's the forged out blade with a cut off piece of the spring it began life as.

Me filing the primary bevel after cleaning up the profile a bit on my belt grinder.

Ready to heat treat.

Working on the Kydex sheath.

After forming it around the blade, tightening the rivets, grinding the profile of the sheath, and opening up the mouth of it some.

After this I sprayed the handle, let it set up overnight, and sharpened it.

Zombie Killer Wakizashi

2010-08-25T12:05:00.000-07:00

All right, for those of you unfamiliar with the term, a "knife in the hat", or k.i.t.h., is something that shows up relatively frequently on knifemakers' forums. Essentially, a set of guidelines for a blade are set forth, those interested in participating sign up, at the end of the time period all the names are thrown into a hat and drawn out, and whoever gets your name sends you their blade and you send whoever's name you get your knife. Understand? Good!

So, over on PaleoPlanet, one of the moderators proposed a k.i.t.h. with the conceit that: "The zombie apocalypse has arrived. You're trapped in a scrap yard. Your vehicle is parked 50 yards outside the fence. Several dozen zombies are gathered outside the fence, patiently waiting to make you dinner. (Good thing they're too dumb to climb the fence.) You need to fight your way back to your vehicle, but -- inexplicably -- you're unarmed. You have access to several junked vehicles, so you have oil for quenching and various springs, and there's plenty of miscellaneous scrap metal around. You have only a few basic tools, an improvised anvil, and a few files that you found in the back of an old work van. But you only have a day's supply of water, so you can't afford to fool around. You need to make yourself an edged weapon that'll get you to your car. Could be a sword, an axe, a pole arm, a big Bowie, the world's biggest set of pruning shears -- your call. You have no sandpaper, no stones, and no power tools." Some rule-bending is possible if necessary. Here's the thread: http://paleoplanet69529.yuku.com/topic/34735

I decided to join in the fun. I've never actually participated in a k.i.t.h. before, but this seemed right up my alley.

My thought on this was that I was dealing with Romero-ish zombies, so they could be avoided if I was quick. I needed something that would be useful at the very close range that one would no longer be able to avoid a zombie and would have to engage - most likely if surprised or somehow cornered. It needed to be something fast to deploy, quick to swing, and devastating to use. I wanted something with one-swing limb-severing capabilities. Something along the lines of a CRKT Hisshou seemed to fit the bill.

This is what I came up with in one day's working time:

A wakizashi forged in a junkyard would obviously be made out of a leaf spring. If I'm engaging zombies, I want to have a darn good grip on this, and I don't want using it to hurt, causing me to drop it or weaken my grip. I didn't want a wrap that might come loose or any kind of tape with needless stickiness. So the best way to achieve a good, comfortable, stong, easily gripped handle was to do an integral socket handle. This is without a doubt the ugliest socket handle I've done, but it is quite comfortable and fills the hand nicely, which would not have been the case with a non-cord-wrapped full tang. Strength is not in question; this is probably the strongest tang/blade transition out there. A small integral guard would keep my hand from sliding up the blade if I needed to stab.

I bent the rules a bit. I figured that I was at the junkyard when the initial outbreak occurred and there was still power. Stock removal was done primarily with an angle grinder, first with a hard stone and then a flap wheel. The junkyard where I'm picturing this taking place (Ashley Salvage, for those of y'all in San Antonio) has a few welding supplies they sell in the office, so I figured it wasn't a stretch for them to have some grinding disks. And quite frankly, I was following my memory and forgot we could use files. That would have made life easier, as there is only so much steadiness I can have with an angle grinder, so I finished off the last part on a coarse whet stone (which I figured stood in place for a piece of fine cement at the junkyard), followed by a broken cinderblock and sharpening on a broken brick.

Oil quench, of course. In the junkyard I would have used motor oil, but working in my shop I used my standard veggie oil. Triple quench, temper selectively drawn by eye with the tip drawn back for extra toughness. The blade actually straightened a fair bit in the quench, which was fine; I had more curvature in it than I had wanted anyways, so it turned out closer to what I had envisioned.

Having put so much work into it, and of course never knowing when you'll need another weapon, I figured I needed a safe way to carry it. So I made a saya (HA!) out of a board from a pallet. I used my Leatherman Core's saw to cut it to length and then to rip it in half. I used the wakizashi I had just finished heat treating to split off a section from the left over piece, and roughly drawknife and chisel (the kissaki portion was used here) it to a wedge shape for a welt. Using straightened nails from the pallet, I nailed the two side boards together with the welt along the bottom, forming a pie slice -shaped hollow. A nail across the top engaged the integral guard when sheathed, keeping it from going into the sheath too far. Some baling wire holds the top of the pie wedge together. A carrying strap would be essential, something that would hold the saya at a comfortable height, and be quick to put on and off. I cut the seatbelt out of a Jeep Cherokee at Ashley Salvage, poked holes in it with the awl on my Leatherman, and sewed it with some more baling wire. The saya worked great except that it was not a tight enough fit to prevent the blade from sliding out if it tipped forward. I took a piece of corrugated cardboard, ran it down one side of the opening and down the outside of the saya to anchor it with some duct tape. The carboard makes it a bit tight to draw the blade, but it is loosening up as it is drawn and re-sheathed so that it can be done quickly. Some more cardboard to make an end cap on the other end of the saya, and then I wrapped the whole thing with duct tape, reinforcing it and locking the seatbelt shoulder strap in place. Ashley Salvage does sell duct tape, by the way.

Here I am wearing it and drawing the blade. A small push with the thumb (which I understand is used with real Japanese swords) and it unsheaths beautifully. The blade is worn edge upwards, and the strap is set up so that it can be worn easily by either a righty or a lefty.

And what good is an untested blade? This is a chunk of elm as big around as halfway up my forearm. It is solid and hard. I timed how long it took to cut this; two minutes, and I could have been quicker if I hadn't had a few hasty mis-strokes. No apparant change in the edge afterwards.

I also did some water bottle cutting tests which I had filmed with my digital camera. It did well at those. I had never uploaded video to Youtube before, but these prompted me to see what was involved in doing so. I've already posted the links here in the blog.

Conclusion: The edge is not nearly as sharp as I'd prefer, but it performed well at the cutting tests I put it through, and it's not at all bad for an edge put on with a cinder block and a brick I picked up in the alley behind my shop. The edge bevel is not as straght and even as I'd like it to be (those files sure would have been handy ), but has no bearing on its functionality. The handle is ugly but comfortable. The saya induces laughter on sight, but is actually fairly decently engineered and by-doggies does precisely what I wanted it to. The blade shape is pretty dead on to what I was aiming at, and ends up with the blade being 14.5" long. I'd call that a wakizashi instead of an o tanto, but I'm not an expert. It's light and fast and cuts well. I could have done better with more time, but I'm happy with it. If anything would get me alive to my pickup beyond the ravenous dead, it'd be this.

2010-08-22T21:59:00.000-07:00

A new video letting you see the wakizashi and saya up close: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaG7fQeDQPY

I HAZ YOUTOOB!

2010-08-20T23:33:00.000-07:00

I HAZ YOUTOOB!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AK2xJKN_26w

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JoZ6m9CiKA

The world is no longer safe...

Too bad I don't like the sound of my voice on recordings. :D

That's all for now, but I will do at least one more video with this showing the whole kit up close. I thought I had done that already, but apparantly hadn't pushed the record button. Sheesh!

A long article and pictures will appear shortly.

Kitchen cutlery

2010-08-18T00:11:00.000-07:00

These are a pair I recently made for my girlfriend's parents as anniversary presents. The veggie chopper, a quasi-Japanese santoku, was my idea and the paring knife was my girlfriend's design. Both blades are forged from steel cut off of a peanut digger blade from my family's farm, differentially hardened in veggie oil (the santoku has a faint hamon that I can't hope to capture with my camera/photography skills), and sharpened to the point where they will shave hair. The bolsters are textured copper scraps left from a baptismal font basin project I'm working on. The handles are a kind of wood called "Texas ebony" which apparantly grows from Laredo on south. Seems like the name "Mexican ebony" would be more accurate, but no one asked me when they named the tree long before my birth

The santoku's handle is faceted, while the paring knife's handle is more organic in shape. The light spots on the wood in the first picture is the sapwood; this second picture shows more what the heartwood looks like. It's some darn tough stuff and didn't like being worked any other way than just grinding it into shape.

General Education About Custom Tools Part 1

2010-07-19T19:52:00.000-07:00

I've decided that rather than simply using this blog as a place to display past and current work, it would be a good opportunity in addition to pass on my experiences, thoughts, and philosophies behind what I make and why.

Although I make other things, I tend to focus on hand tools and in particular those with cutting edges. When I was little, I always loved reading fantasy works like Robert E. Howard's Conan stories, Lloyd Alexander's Prydain Chronicles, Robin McKinley's The Hero and the Crown, and dozens of others. Some time before I became a teenager, I started cutting sea cane for my grandpa using a machete. For a while there, I would cut back his grove of the tall, bamboo-like canes every summer. Sword fantasies inevetibly ran through my head while whopping away at the stalks. Around that time I also began working on clearing the wild plum bushes out of a fence row on our farm using a machete and an ax. Growing up in a house heated only by a wood burning stove, I had plenty of opportunity to split firewood as well, first with an 8 pound sledge and iron wedges, and as I got strong enough to weild it, an 8 pound splitting maul. In my later high school years, I began chopping mesquites out of the fields of my family's farm. This struggle continues, as I will be returning at the end of July for a week to try to further beat back the hydra-like bane-trees. Interspersed in all this is a lot of general brush cutting and the addition of billhooks to my arsenal.

I also received at around age 10 my first knife: a yellow-handled Schrade 3-bladed stockman pocket knife. It's just like the one Daddy carried, except that his was worn slap-dab out. Around the end of high school, I began making knives. I still carry the Schrade daily, now with the addition of a fixed blade work knife I made for myself. It wasn't until I was out of college and working as a high school English teacher that I bought any other knives. When I did, it was to see how they were made, how well they worked, and how I could do better.

There are plenty of people out there who have used blades more than I have, but there are far more people in the general public who have not. Familiarity with the work done with a tool and with the tool itself teaches one what makes a quality tool, a mid-level tool, and a poor tool. With many people lacking that familiarity, and with the wide availability of industrial production, the market is fairly glutted with mediocre and flat-out crappy knives and other bladed tools.

I spend a great deal of time reading various knife forums, and among those not in the business of making them, I see many people who put a lot of time, thought, and effort into buying low- to mid-quality knives. People will quibble over a $10 price difference between two models rather than looking at the quality of the work and the effectiveness of the design. I often see someone commenting about how they are afraid to use a nice blade, or that they don't want to spend a lot of money on a knife because they might lose it.

Allow me to opine that if you are prone to losing knives, you really should work on personal responsibility and keeping track of your gear. A knife is one of man's oldest and most basic tools. Any time society's safety nets are removed from around you, whether you're hiking in the woods, in the middle of some form of natural disaster, or walking to your car in some lonely parking lot, a knife is often the best and sometimes only means you have of preserving your life. Losing all else, with appropriate skills and knowledge, a knife can provide what you need to make it through alive.

As for worrying about messing up a nice knife, I can understand that to a degree. With factories churning out inexpensive knives, the handmade knife is relegated often to a canvas for the artwork of the knifemaker. One does not typically decorate their campsite with a Dali painting, and one may not want to gut a deer with a gold and blacklip mother-of-pearl handled Samuel Bell-style dirk.

There is, however, a middle ground. Plenty of knifemakers make working knives that are aesthetically more beautiful, ergonomically more comfortable, and functionally not even in the same league as the average factory-made knife. Their prices may run somewhat higher than the cheap knives, but often they are on par with or cheaper than quality factory-made knives.

All businesses are in the job of making money. Rarely will you find a business of any sort that does not seek a way of cutting costs. Think of this, though: who has a higher chance of cutting cost by cutting quality, a large factory with a customer base that is looking harder at price than any other factor, or a custom knifemaker whose every blade is indelibly linked with his name and personal reputation?

I'll continue this line of thought in a future post.

2010-07-05T19:41:00.000-07:00

I have a new project I'm working on, another collaboration with Noah of Wasteland Leatherwork. This is the next phase of the Wasteland Crow Project.

There are actually two different phases of the Wasteland Crow Project that we're working on. More details will be forthcoming, but here is the current progress on the large knife.

This is a barong-style blade 13.5" long. The handle is an integral socket, which is an incredibly strong construction. The steel is leaf spring, with multiple quenches in vegetable oil, differnetianlly tempered, bevel and false edge filed by hand. There will be more done with the handle wrap, but it is currently wrapped in cotton cord sealed with clear shellac that has had a bottle of India ink mixed in.

The shape of the blade, weight distribution, and angle in relation to the handle all combine for a strong chopping power. In spite of not yet being sharpened, I chopped through a good-sized chunk of elm, as you can see in the picture.

Kit knives

2010-06-22T10:04:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I have a customer who wants a knife blade that they can put their own handle on: a custom kit knife. These are a couple that I have done. Both customers ordered a forge finish on the blades.

This is a seax and flint striker, forged from leaf spring and file, respectively. I also fitted up a copper guard for the seax, although it ins't pictured. Both guard and tang got left over-large so the customer could shape them down to fit the handle he made.

This was a Bowie that was recently commissioned from me. It, too, is leaf spring, quenched in vegetable oil and given a differential heat treatment. The guard is copper electrical bus bar. I like using salvaged materials when it makes sense. :) He plans a slab handle of worm-eaten but still solid American chestnut.

Neo-Tribal Razor

2010-05-31T08:10:00.000-07:00

This razor was comissioned by a guy who saw pictures of a similar one I had made for myself last summer. This one is made from an old Nicholson file. The original was car spring. The file's higher carbon content should make it hold its edge longer. With the car spring razor, I had to strop the edge midway through a shave.

It was forged out, ground, hardened in vegetable oil, temper lightly drawn, honed, and stropped. The box is made by my neighbor and sometime student, Bryan Pope, whose fine ax I've already shown. It is made from salvaged red cedar, left rough.