New knife!

Do you guys remember Sudsmonkey? http://iam.homebrewtalk.com/sudsmonkey He hasn't been around HBT in a long time, but he and I have stayed friends. Well, as much as you can be friends with someone you've never met....................
Anyway, he isn't brewing any more, but he's got some new hobbies. He's a blacksmith, with a forge. He started making knives a while ago, and he made one for me.



He has told me how he does it, but I'm not well versed in tempered carbon blades, so most of it goes way over my head! I do know that it's made from old saw blades that he rehabs, and he made the grip to fit my hand. The knife is all hand made, and he made me a skinning knife- that's why it's shaped the way it is. I didn't get to use it yet (Bob skinned a deer while I was at work on Friday) but I'm looking forward to it.

I never had anything "nice" like that before. Just cheap Cabela's type knives. This knife even feels weighted differently, if that makes sense. It's a totally different feel, not to mention the sharpest knife I've ever touched in my life.

Anyway, I just wanted to brag up the workmanship here. He told me it took him about 70 hours to make this knife! It's hard to tell in the picture, but it really is attractive.

He's not going into business with Jack, is he?

That's pretty effin' sweet. Seventy hours is crazy, though!

Very nice! I have a skinning knife that a friend of my dad's made for me that's made from a saw blade tooth from a mill. Excellent knife.

Man that is nice, and the hardend steel of the saw blades means that it can go a while longer between sharpening, if he does demascus blades, that is what i would tell my wife to get me for christmas, very beautyful steel, anyway congrats on your new and very cool knife

What is the handle made out of?

dataz722 said:

What is the handle made out of?

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I don't remember exactly- he asked me if I wanted a wood or "something else" grip. He told me that the wood is much prettier, but this is non-slip and feels good. I'll ask him again- things I don't understand really just slip right through my head. I do know that the blade is full length, and the grips are on either side.

"Full tang," I think is the term you want. Waiting to hear from Chad, since he's literally written the book on knives.

RDWSAK

Relax Don't Worry, Smith a Knife?

Here's an old email talking about how he does it:

I don't have any pictures of forging, and we have dial up this far out in the woods, so uploading them would be an ordeal. I'd be glad to draw up a diagram of how it works if you'd like. Basically, I start with a piece of steel, either flat or round, forge it flat, point it, draw it out to get my length and width, bevel it, then hammer the bevel all the way from the cutting edge to the spine of the blade. The blade ends up looking like it's made of concrete because of all of the hammer marks and forge scale on it. After a bunch of grinding and cleaning up, it's much more presentable. On your knife, the edge bevel runs back from the cutting edge a certain distance until it transitions over to the flat part of the blade. On my forged knives, the blade is a flat surface, or continuous bevel, from the cutting edge all the way to the spine.
I'm still working on the first forged blade to that pattern. We'll see how it turns out. Maybe I can get some pictures and save them to a disk? I did that with the knife I made for the frind of Sudster's( remember him from HBT?) nephew. I'll see what I can do.
Stock removal, where the blade' s cut out, filed and ground to shape, can all be done by hand. For forging you need, well, a forge. I have a forge built, but I'm having trouble with the burners. They run for twenty minutes before blowing fire out the top. Not too good! I'm using one in my buddy's shop until I get set up at home. Be glad when that happens.

I asked him again what the grip is made out of, since I don't remember!

That is very cool. It's amazing the variety of craftsfolk who make products by hand. Congratulations on your new knife!

The blade ends up looking like it's made of concrete because of all of the hammer marks and forge scale on it.

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One acquaintance in Las Vegas says you can tell who made a Samurai sword by the hammer mark pattern. He had a couple and spent WAY too much time explaining it. His coolest knife is an assassination blade. It has the victim's name on one side and the assassin's on the other. There's a weak point between the handle and the blade, so after you use it, you break it off in the body. Apparently it's rare to find one that wasn't used.

Well, I can't top that story, but I can tell you that my knife has never seen ****.

From Sudsmonkey, after my dumb question on 'what is this again?':

The grip is made of rubber. More specifically, recycled horse trailer matting. It was actually a leftover scrap, so it's poo-free.


The knife just feels so good in my hand, I want to use it!

YooperBrew said:

The knife just feels so good in my hand, I want to use it!

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Why do I have images of Bob running screaming into the night???

Sweet knife! I've always loved watching blacksmiths, I've played around with it some (nothing like SudsMonkey), you can build a very simple forge pretty easily... or just use an acetylene torch to get the metal hot.

yoop,,,why didn't we get to see this at brewfest? i'd love to feel it in my hand. and also see him make one since i've always been fascinated by smithy's

Yooper next time you chat tell him I said hello please.
I still make his pig sauce.

Nice knife.

eriktlupus said:

yoop,,,why didn't we get to see this at brewfest? i'd love to feel it in my hand. and also see him make one since i've always been fascinated by smithy's

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I didn't think to bring a knife to Henry Hill's to be honest......
But now that I've met you clowns, I'll bring a weapon next time! He wrote me a very long letter, explaining the process. While I find it so interesting, it's WAY over my head so I don't understand much of it.

Orfy said:

Yooper next time you chat tell him I said hello please.
I still make his pig sauce.

Nice knife.

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Orfy, I will tell him you said hello, and still make the pig sauce.

He's doing fine, and I'm sending him out some hand harvested wild rice and some crabapple wine this week.

I've actually considered making knives and swords, but a brief investigation revealed it would take WAAAAAYYY too much effort to build or buy a forge and learn how to do all of that.

A friend of mine cheats and just grinds and sands some saw blades and mounts them on antler or wood handles. Not as nice, but still a good blade.

You know, I saw a video of someone's blast furnace not too long ago. They were using it to superheat rocks for doing stonebier (whatever you call it, boiling the wort with uber-hot stones). Looked like a very simple setup, actually, something that would not be too hard to build. Wondering if something like that could be used if you DID want to experiement around with trying to forge high-carbon steel. Blast furnace, some charcoal, and some water to quench the blade.

Homercidal said:

I've actually considered making knives and swords, but a brief investigation revealed it would take WAAAAAYYY too much effort to build or buy a forge and learn how to do all of that.

A friend of mine cheats and just grinds and sands some saw blades and mounts them on antler or wood handles. Not as nice, but still a good blade.

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Nice Knife Yoop


We have a family friend who does this. Well he does several version of handles but no forging. Cuts out the blank with a plasma then shapes and sharpens by hand. Here's one he made for my son's 1st bday.
Kind of hard to get a good pic. Blade is beautiful finish.

OK, who else thinks that giving a one year old baby a knife for his birthday is a REALLY, REALLY BAD IDEA?

Only if it doesn't come with a sheath for it.

the_bird said:

OK, who else thinks that giving a one year old baby a knife for his birthday is a REALLY, REALLY BAD IDEA?

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Only if you're giving it to The Bird to apparently thinks the baby would have any access to it.

It's a keep sake to give him when he's older and a father/son memento. It's in a display case that he will not have access to.

And it was given to me to open for him.

YooperBrew said:

The blade ends up looking like it's made of concrete because of all of the hammer marks and forge scale on it. After a bunch of grinding and cleaning up, it's much more presentable.

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Here is a before and after, to see what Sudsmonkey is talking about.

That's not a knife, this is...oh, no wait, that IS a knife!!!

Nice blade!