Saturday, December 31, 2011

Happy New Year!

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.

Sunday, December 11, 2011

The Ridiculously Large Bowie

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:

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

San Antonio Gun Show

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