Pair of double-edged Benghazi Warfighters

This was a commission for a husband-and-wife pair of sharp-and-pointies.  5160 steel, triple normalized, triple hardened, triple tempered.  Canvas Micarta handles with flared stainless steel tubing rivets. 

And Kydex sheaths with TekLoks.

They shave on the tops and bottoms, which impressed the customer.  He said he hadn't gotten a knife with a sharpened top edge that was that sharp before.  :D  They ain't his first custom knives, either.

Forging ahead

Just to show you I'm still out there working on some sharp-and pointies:

Also, check out the Helm Enterprises, Grinding Division blog to see some of the tooling that I've been working on to use in building my tactical tomahawks:  www.helmgrind.com

Hiatus from commissions

Hi, folks.

It's been one crazy summer.  Three knife shows, family medical stuff, the wheels falling off of my poor old pickup (well, almost; the brake booster and wheel bearings went out in rapid succession), and work to launch my stock removal line of blades (Helm Enterprises, Grinding Division  www.helmgrind.com).

So I have gotten behind in taking care of custom orders.  There's a lot of communication involved in building a custom knife, so even if I have you written down on my list, discussing new commissions divides my attention and can make it hard to keep track of what I need to work on right now.

To help with keeping focused on taking care of the customers who have already made commissions with me, I am taking a break from accepting new commissions until I can get more caught up.  I am working on them right now in batches, which is more efficient than working on one at a time.  I'll be posting the new work as I finish it up, just like usual.  I'll also be continuing to work on prototyping and streamlining the process of building my line of stock removal blades as I do that.

1.  If you're active duty military and you're looking for a knife, go ahead and contact me.  You go to the front of the line.
2.  If you've commissioned a blade from me and we haven't communicated in a while, drop me a line.  I'm only human and I sure want to make sure that I have you on the list of blades I'm working on.
3.  If we're in the process of discussing a commission, don't worry.  You got in under the wire.  :)  We'll get everything hashed out and you'll be added to the list.

Thanks for all your patience and for taking an interest in my work.  It is greatly appreciated!

Brush choppers with leather

Finished these three recently and got them in the mail. All three are 5160, triple normalized, triple hardened, and triple tempered. The sheaths are all built by Luke Swenson (www.swensonknives.com). All three sheaths are built to be ambidextrous (which, as a lefty, I really like), with adjustable height belt loops, and leg tie-down areas.

Short bush sword:  I forgot to take measurements before packing away, but this is approximately a 14" blade.  The raised clip is a false edge.  Handle wrap is black paracord impregnated with epoxy, with two-strand Turk's head knots fore and aft.

Bush cleaver: About the same length, but a bit heavier. Also in black paracord with two-strand Turk's head knots.

Mini-parang: Posted this before without the leather. Blade is 10 1/4". Hemp cord with epoxy on this one, with three-strand Turk's head knots.

First time for my work in print!

If y'all haven't seen it yet, one of my knives was tested out and reviewed by Kim Breed in the November 2013 issue of Blade Magazine, on page 28.  Magazines being the weird critters they are, the November issue is on the shelves right now in August.  :)

Kim tested out one of my Benghazi Warfighters with a short, fully sharpened double edge.  He refers to it as a Neo-Tribal Utility in the article, which is also accurately descriptive.  He put it through a pretty good workout and I'm pleased with how the knife did.  I particularly liked that he commented a couple of times about the comfort of the handle, as that's something that's important to me.

He put the blade through a thorough series of real world tests and it did well.  The number of rope cuts was a little low, but given that this is a knife built and intended to balance on the tougher side of things to withstand military usage and that bringing the edge back to shaving sharp is quick to do, I am overall happy with the performance.  Kim didn't hold back with it and the knife served well.

This is actually the second time that my work showed up in Blade, but the previous time was a letter to the editor where I thanked them for their article on the Bowies at the Alamo as the picture of the Caiaphus Ham Bowie knife in the article helped me build a commissioned replica I was working on at the time.  I included a picture of my version that they published, but this was the first time that someone else's thoughts on my knives had seen print.

I believe there are some more articles forthcoming in other magazines, but not sure when.

Bush cleaver

Been working on a handful of cleaver commissions since building the zombie meat cleaver for a KITH a while back.  This one was shipped last week.

I forgot to take measurements before packing it up, but the blade is in the 13" to 14" range.  The steel is 5160, and the integral socket handle is wrapped in hemp cord, with three strand hemp cord Turk's head knots, all impregnated with epoxy.

Kydex sheath with MOLLE locks.  The blade is hair-shaving sharp, of course.  :)

Goat cleaver

This was a commission from a Navy SEAL (a buddy of the one who's been such a good customer to me) to use in processing out the wild goats and feral hogs that he hunts in his downtime there in Hawaii.  Since he was wanting it for more butcher duty than some of the blunt-ended choppers I've made in the past, I followed a more traditional meat cleaver design.

As part of that, I angled the blade to the handle where the knuckles would have plenty of clearance when chopping a carcass on a butcher block.

 

I decided to take pics with several different backgrounds and levels of shade.  :)

 

 

The steel is 5160, the handle is an integral socket handle wrapped in hemp cord with three-strand Turk's head knots at the ends, impregnated with epoxy.  The overall length is 18", the blade is 12" long and 3/16" at the spine, and is 3 1/2" wide at the widest.  It shaves hair very cleanly.

A shot of it in hand.

And a picture he sent me of one of the goats he's hunted in the past.  He's promised to send me pics when he gets to hack up a carcass for a barbecue.