Helm/Tendick Wakizashi/Tanto Daisho Wakizashi

Note: These are available.  Check out the "Available Work" section for details.

Sometime last year I made an o-tanto that caught the eye of the very talented Ben Tendick of BRT Bladeworks in Oregon.  We had been wanting to do a collaboration for a while, and it seemed like a good direction to go.  The tanto was slated for someone, so I forged another, and ended up making a wakizashi in the same style as well.  I forged the blades, and Ben did the rest of the work.

Here's what was sent to Ben, a 16" and a 11.5" blade forged from 80CrV2 steel, heat treated and ready for Ben to work his magic on the handles.  I left the tangs big and blocky to give Ben plenty of canvas on which to paint.

Ben worked them down, shouldered the tangs to fit the tsubas, and drilled the holes to anchor the wrap.

I left all the details to Ben on how he wanted to finish.  He decided to use wrought iron for the tsubas.  In his words, "I did my best to capture that well used Ronin style in this set."

And copper menuki with his touchmark.

He went with antiqued cotton cord for the underlay. 

Finished up.

 

 

 

I think Ben nailed it.   8-)

Benghazi Warfighters and Little Roks

Working on a small batch of mid-tech stock removal Benghazi Warfighters and Little Roks.  These are cut from 3/16" 80CrV2 steel, ground and heat treated, and coated with Cerakote.  They will be getting TeroTuf handle scales and Boltaron sheaths.  When finished, they will be available at Blue Line Gear.

Blue Line Gear

Camp chopper and Hisshou re-wrap

A couple more blades that have recently left my shop.

The first is a camp chopper traded to another knifemaker for a kitchen knife for my wife.  It's taken a loooong time for me to finish it up.  It has a 13" blade forged from 80CrV2 steel, with a tan over black paracord wrap and tan Kydex sheath.

 

The second is a re-wrap on a CRKT Hisshou, designed by James Williams.  I usually don't work on other people's blades, but this is the design that started me playing around with tanto designs of my own.  The customer had already stripped off the handle wrap and ray skin underlay, leaving the polymer bolster in place.  I laid down a neoprene foundation, followed by a tan paracord underlay and tang paracord overlay, with a three-strand Turk's head knot on top of the bolster.

The sheath on this is Boltaron, very similar to Kydex but less susceptible to temperature changes once molded.  I think it has some better definition as well.  The pistol holster guys like it.  This is what I'll be using on sheaths now.

The Hisshou is zero ground, something I've never done, but I touched it up with my stropping belt on my belt grinder with some green chrome compound.  He noticed, sayin, "It's friggin' shaving sharp!"  :D