Happy Guppy Fish Knife :)> *A Golden One*

....this on just joined the stream of life & already narrowly escaped being eaten!
...I know, silly, but as I found this antique Japanese fabric to shoot this newly created Happy Guppy Fish Knife on,
I laughed at the fact that these birds as depicted and hand-woven into this cloth actually love to eat all sorts of critter, snakes...and yes even little little guppy fish!

This one is going to Mark1952. He has the larger Happy Fish Camp Knife & decided to expand his fish family.

Forged-to-shape out of 1095 and scale textured & hand carved. The blade was differentially heat treated and features a tapered tang, polished bevels and razor edge.
I think Marks choice for the golden desert ironwood was a great one & I love how the wood transitions to darker portion as it blends to the forged-scale-textures.

OAL is 7" with a blade that is just shy of 3.75"

I hope you enjoy the images of this little golden Cutie.

-DON:)

Gentleman's Tanto dressed in antique linen Micarta & Nichols Damascus

This represents two firsts for me.

#1 the first knife I have finished out of Damascus steel. This is Chad Nichols High Layer Twist of 1095 & 15N20.

#2 the first knife I have ever made using man made handle materials.
This with some nice old Westinghouse Antique Linen Micarta with black inlay of some material that was sent to me that they make pool-cues with...I forget exactly what it is.....basically a plastic I think.
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Thanks to my Mentor Tai Goo for the blade-shape inspiration.
Thanks to Nick Rossi for helping me out on some process questions I had.
Thanks to Chad for the sweet piece of Damascus.
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OAL on this sweet little-nasty is a hair over 9.5" with a 5.25" blade that is 1.50" wide.
The knife feels really sweet in the hand and I think is a very cool and useful blade-style. I have some integral versions of this one that will appear at G4 on my table this year.

The tanto still needs the final sharpening. I plan to have the bevel at the front-cutting-edge to a high polished state after that is done.

Now for the images. I hope you all enjoy them.

-DON:)

This is the second piece of Chads Damascus I have forged from a single bar I bought from him at G3.
.....AND to illustrate why I love forging all my knives, I have included this shot of this knife next to the first blade still waiting to be finished.
Each of these was forged from essentially the same size piece of material.
The bar in the second shot shows the top portion used to make both of these knives.
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IF you take a close look at the two blades below you will see that on the slicing knife the twist pattern got drawn-out as I forged-in the distal taper,
...and on the little tanto I did the exact opposite, in that, I had to upset the bar to get that width to make this shape, thus compressing the ladder pattern together even more tightly.

I thought that was pretty cool & certainly shows some of the neat stuff that happens when forging a piece of pattern welded steel to shape.

 And finally, going backwards in time to my original concept sketch with a shot of the blade just off the anvil. Thanks for looking:)

Integral Gentleman's Knife,...a thin one :)

Well....I thought it was pretty thin anyhow.

I have forged integral knives out of all sorts of stuff, but this was the first time making a knife out of a piece of snow-plow-blade!

It was given to me years ago and said to be amazing steel.
I did lots of testing on it which revealed it to have some great knifemaking potential.
When I first tried to forge a piece 6-years ago, back then it felt wickedly-stiff under the hammer I never really did anything with it; I could hardly get it to move!

Fast forward to now having more experience and better hammer control & I finally got down to it.

It feels good to be getting back into making integral knives and these full tang integrals are among the more challenging to do. The only thing more difficult is to add in a rear integral bolster.

This one is 12.25" OAl with a 6" of cutting edge.
Knife exhibits some very nice Ebony wood handles & three peened bronze pins, the third of which is a "blind pin" and is hidden under the Lemon-wood inlay.

I hope you enjoy the images.

-DON:)

 

 

Stick Tang Honesuki

I have been playing around with my versions on Japanese classic chef knife patterns.
A Honesuki is a Japanese boning knife for those who do not know and normally have only about a 5-6" blade that is fairly stiff. Most Honesuki you see are full tang construction knives more often than not.

My version is of the stick-tang construction with the Machi butted right up to the handle & is larger at 7" of cutting edge and 12.5" OAL.
This Honesuki features an ultra thin blade suitable for all sorts of veggie prep...and no doubt this baby will still bone-out a variety meats no problem at all.
The blade is forged to shape out of some of Aldo's 1095 and features a differential heat treatment.

This is the first chef knife I have used some of this ultra high-grade mesquite wood with the fine frog's-hair curl to it. There are like 18-20 tight curls per inch on this piece I scored!
Mesquite is perhaps one of the most stable woods on the planet so I think perfect for chef knives.
Mesquite is a bit lighter than I would normally like, but since this blade is exceedingly thin it worked perfectly on this knife and the resulting balance is dreamy.
The handle also features Bloodwood accents the smaller of which hides conceals the pin. I thought about doing some carving but felt the wood just too beautiful to do more to.

I hope you enjoy the images.

-DON:)

Custom Veggie Cleaver

I just finished this wonderful Veggie Cleaver for a local chef.

I was pleased to meet John and even more excited that he wanted me to make him a custom knife.
It came out really amazing.

After creating the final sharpening I firmly believe that this is the sharpest knife I have ever made!
When I got it all finished-up & gently placed it in the storage drawer (awaiting the slip-sheath to be made for it tomorrow) I walked out the studio thinking to myself, "that knife is beyond-Sharp" if that is at all possible.

Anyhow. I was pleased and I hope Chef John Blevins will be as well.

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Forged to shape out of Aldo's .140-thick 1095 that was 2" wide.
I cut some off before forging it since John wanted it to be 2.25" wide.
The blade is 6.25" and exactly 2.25" wide. OAL is 11"
The handle is some nice African Blackwood & is shaped quite differently than I would normally do as John has a unique grip unlike anyone else with two fingers on each hand & employes a chef knife amazingly well & so I know this will fit him well.

Rainbow quench with tiger-stripes running perpendicular to the primary quench lines = AWESOME in my book.

John just said he wanted something special in the way of blade-finish & I think I did it for him.

Enjoy the images

-DON:)