Contact information

James Helm, Helm Enterprises

 

BOOKS ARE CLOSED TO NEW ORDERS AT THE MOMENT!!!!!!  See my previous posts on the subject before contacting me:

 

Order Status

 

BOOKS ARE CLOSED!!!!!

If you are asking about classes/lessons, I have not taught for several years.  Check info here:

Classes
 

By phone: (210) 209-1549  I have no problem discussing things on the phone and answering questions, and it is a good way to get a lot of information across quickly.  However, it's easier to refer back to what we had previously discussed with e-mail, so I usually ask that the customer e-mail me after the phone conversation to remind me what we had decided upon.

By e-mail:  helmforge@gmail.com  If you send me an e-mail, PLEASE LET ME KNOW YOUR NAME!  I have had customers that I have talked back and forth with for a good while and only find out their name when it comes time to ship the finished piece.  It's awkward on my end to not know what to call you.

I am a one man shop at the moment, so sometimes the secretarial duties get a bit neglected.  If you haven't heard back from me in a timely fashion, please send me another message.

Workin' for the weekend.

I'm getting married on Saturday.  Between now and then I need to finish up these:

All the 'hawks and five of the knives need Kydex sheaths.

If everything keeps going as smoothly as it has been, I can pull it off, though I will probably be taking them with me to mail to customers from the honeymoon trip.  My loverly bride-to-be, bless her heart, is ok with this.  :)

Tactical Knives article bush sword

I just had an article by Joe Flowers come out in the July issue (yes, already on the stands in March!) of Tactical Knives Magazine.  He reviewed a bush sword and companion knife that I made for him with an ambidextrous, modular leather sheath rig by Luke Swenson (www.swensonknives.com).  I've had several e-mails and calls congratulating me on the article and asking questions after reading it.

The photos by Terrill Hoffman are terrific, but they're in black and white and don't convey the retina-searing neon lemon color of the paracord wrap on the handle.  I chose the color after seeing another article Joe wrote about a river rafting knife that also had a bright yellow handle for high visibility.

A nice personal touch from Luke.

We also made a rig at the same time for fellow TK writer Reuben Bolieu.  In contrast, I used retina-searing neon orange paracord for his.  I found out later that he likes orange tools for working in jungle as it shows up easily if dropped among leaves.  He's posted on various forums photos of the rig being used to cut wood for fires and shelters, cutting good-sized logs to build a raft, making shavings for fire starter, clearing tall grass, etc.  Here it is with him on a trip to Peru: http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php/1003545-Peru-2012-Fall-Class-Part-2?highlight=raft 

I handed over the rigs to these two gentlemen at the Blade Show.  Here's Joe with his:

And, from left to right, Luke, Reuben, and me.

Gettin' hitched!

I'm getting married on March 29th (WOOHOO!!!).  I've been putting in some long days trying to get as much work finished up and off to customers before then as I can, and have gotten behind some in my e-mail correspondence.  So if you haven't heard back from me as quickly as I should answer, please be patient and give me another ping.  I'll try to get back with you ASAP.

On a related note, I will be taking my laptop with me on my honeymoon so that I can answer e-mails, but don't be surprised if there's a delay then too.  I intend to be very occupied.  :D

Knife Rights Warfighter

In support of Knife Rights' efforts in safeguarding the owners of all things sharp from pernicious legislation, I'm again donating to their yearly Ultimate Steel fundraising raffle.  Last year was a bush sword with a leather sheath rig by Luke Swenson.  This year, it's one of my Benghazi Warfighter model and a Kydex sheath I made for it.

The knife is 11 3/4" overall, with a blade length of 6 3/4" and a false edge about 2/3 the blade length.  It's forged from 1/4" 5160 that's been triple normalized, triple hardened, and triple tempered.  The handle is black canvas Micarta with flared stainless steel tubing rivets.

The point is a bit more aggressive on this particular one than what I've been making, and it's something I'm going to incorporate into the Benghazi Warfighter design.

It comes with a black Kydex sheath with a large TekLok.

I appreciate Knife Rights' work and am glad to help them out.  I've seen their efforts to change restrictive laws here in my own state of Texas, and they are making a positive change for knife owners.  This set is on its way to them and will have better photos taken of it than what my own poor efforts can do, and I'll put up the better pics when I get them.

Wrecking some padlocks

There was a request in a forum to get pictures of breaking padlocks.  It was a test I'd been planning on for a while, shooting some video of it, but hadn't gotten to that point yet.  I decided to go ahead and test it out with shooting photos and get the video at a future date.

I tried padlock breaking for the first time with one of my Wreckers that I was hanging onto for myself to shoot some demonstration videos later.  I wasn't as quick or graceful about it as Ryan Johnson, but I was successful.  My spike doesn't fit as well in the shackle of the padlock as the RMJ does.  Don't know if that will lead to changing the design down the road or not as busting padlocks is not the only design consideration with them.

Prior to starting on the lock, a standard Master Lock:

After the shackle broke:

 

Hard to tell from that pic.  Let's take a closer look:

You can see that I struck at the body of the lock with the point of the spike.  I honestly don't know if it was prying or striking that broke the shackle.  It wasn't a dramatic event and I didn't see it was broken at first.

I decided to try it with a lock with a shorter shackle.  It was even more difficult to fit the spike in with the heavy chain links.  I ended up striking with the spike until the lock popped open.  You could not re-lock it afterwards due to the damage.

 

Here's a close look at the longer-shackled lock:

And the various places on the shorter one that got hit:

 

 

It was hard to get my camera to focus on the end of the spike's point, but you can see that while the steel wasn't untouched, it almost was exactly like it started out.

 

I still plan on shooting video of lock breaking sometime down the road.

SEAL's Wrecker 'hawk rig

This is the one that actually started me on the path to making full tang tomahawks.  I'd been working on forged prototypes with nylon handles for a while, but still had questions in my mind, particularly about the handles.  Then the SEAL who has become my best customer asked about me making him a full-tang 'hawk, and it solved the issues I was having but meant that I'd need to do a major shift in my approach and work out the logistics for building it.

He asked about it late last winter, and I finally got his 'hawk to him in December.  Part of that wait was making sure I had it right, part of it was having one that would match his order being bought off my table at the Blade Show in June, part of it was waiting until I could have a sheath with it, and part of it was his work keeping him busy and away from e-mail.

But, I just heard back from him and he is happy with his tomahawk.  So, here it is.  :)

12" Wrecker (pry spike) model in olive drab with sharpened inner beard.  His was the first sheath I made for them, before I got the tooling together for the other two models.  He got it with the shoulder sling and IWB bands.

This shows the 'hawk better, but is taken before I moved the IWB bands to their final position.

Here's me using it to demonstrate the shoulder carry.  Note that there's a lot of adjustment to pull it up tighter, and that I moved the IWB bands from being on the corners to the inside of the shoulder sling later on.

 

Not one to sit still on his time off, he told me he's been wearing it by the shoulder sling on a few hikes and barely notices it's there.

He also sent me a picture of a display case that his future brother-in-law made for him for some (not all) of the blades he's gotten from me.  I joke with him about charging into battle wearing a kilt made of my blades.  :D