Getting ready for the Blade Show

Working feverishly to get everything ready.  I have a decent handful of finished blades, but am hoping to have these ready as well:

 And something quite a bit different from my other stuff that I hope to debut at Blade.  I'll take pics when they're finished.  They get priority over these in-progress knives.  :D  They've been taking most of my time for the last month.

Double edged sword blade collaboration

Some of y'all may recall me making this double-edged short sword a while back:

It was me experimenting to see if I could forge a double edged blade, testing for an upcoming project.

Well, I mailed out my part of the project today, going to a certain mad genius in Germany who will be building the handle for it.  It's not going to be a typical sword when finished.    The blade I supplied is 18", including the choils, and is forged from 5160.

Here it is post-forging:

  Right before packing it to ship, I took it up to the little canyon that's upslope from my shop:

And I braved mosquitos the size of horseflies to film a simple water bottle cut.  Nothing too impressive, just showing it'll cut.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIq5DYqXUWs

Another Little Rok in military hands

I love getting feedback from customers.  :)

 

I've had several different Little Rok knives go to military customers at this point and I have adopted one for my own personal EDC.  This one was a graduation present for a fellow who just graduated from West Point.  The customer who bought it to give to the graduate has a couple of other blades from me and has put them to good use.

In this case we went with a single edged blade, natural tan canvas Micarta for the handle, and coyote brown for the Kydex sheath, with a small TekLok.

 

I hope it serves him well as he serves our country.

Sinuous bush sword: KnifeRights.org donation piece

Back in January, while visiting the ABS Expo here in San Antonio, I met Doug Ritter of KnifeRights.org.  Knife Rights is essentially the NRA of the bladed world.  He asked if I'd be willing to donate a blade for their auction they hold to fund the legal battle defending the second amendment as it pertains to knives, and I agreed.

I forged out this sinuous bush sword from 5160.  It has an integral socket handle, a recurved blade, and a raised false edge that is thin enough it could easily have a secondary bevel added and become double-edged.

Added some paracord impregnated in Minwax Wood Hardener and sharpened it:

Then I handed it over to Luke Swenson ([url]http://www.swensonknives.com[/url]) who built a multiple carry option sheath rig for it and donated that to the cause.  The inside of the baldric has an ostrich print inlay.

And then I did a wee bit of test cutting to show it's a working tool:

I delivered it this past weekend to the KnifeRights.org booth at the Lone Star Knife Expo, along with my buddy Tobin Nieto's entry.  You can see all of the donated work here: http://www.kniferights.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=179&Itemid=1  They're all getting auctioned at the end of July.

Zombie meat cleaver coconut test

Got my good camera back rolling (battery was just low, letting it sort of do things but not really) and snapped some better pics.

 

 

And, of course, the coconut mayhem!

 

Upcoming shows

I'll keep a list of upcoming knife shows where I have a table in this post and update as need be.  There will be a link in the upper right hand corner of the page to this post.

UPCOMING SHOWS:

Blade Show, Atlanta, GA -June 2-4 2015  www.bladeshow.com  Table 26R

The Ususal Suspects Gathering, Las Vegas, NV - August 31-September 2 2017 http://usngathering.com/

Zombie meat cleaver - KITH blade

This is my entry for a KITH exchange over on Knife Dogs.  The theme is zombie kitchen cutlery: "Since Zombies are all the rage and very tasty if properly prepared, how about a Neo Tribal, post apocalyptic kitchen "utensil"?"

So I forged out a meat cleaver. The steel is 5160, the blade is about 12" long, and the hole is 1".

Here's what it looked like before triple hardening in canola oil:

 

Here it is with zombie-appropriate handle wrap, an edge that shaves hair nicely, and a few "zombie skulls" for testing later on in the weekend.  Video eventually.  A discussion on Zombie Squad decided that all of the zombie-themed merchandise flooding the market right now is colored lime green because it must be outside the spectrum of colors that the undead can see.  Unfortunately, with my good camera on the fritz, the color is also somewhat outside of the spectrum my point-and-shoot camera can see accurately, apparently.  I'll see if I can get better pics before all is said and done.  :)