Hanged Man Designs

I gotta have SPACE!

2011-12-30T14:37:00.002-07:00

I gotta have SPACE!

If anyone remembers the animated short “Creature Comforts” (which you can find on youtube), they will certainly remember the Brazilian Mountain Lion and his need for space. That is how I felt in our rental property.

Now, thanks to some substantial help from my Dad, we own a house. With some basic and very rough body measurements and a little math, we estimated the rental at about 900sqft living space. The new house is over 2700! Erica’s workspace is now about 2/3 the size of our old house – which is good since I’m pretty sure she used more than that at least part time.

Especially during the Christmas rush.

I think the old house shrunk during the Christmas rush period too. There wasn’t a flat (or semi-flat) surface anywhere that wasn’t covered in t-shirts, screens, or packaging materials. And no time to clean. I think that if I showed a picture, I would be shot.

Without the assistance of Alex, Erica’s brother, I don’t think we would have made it, and as it is Erica shut down Causticthreads for the season on December 14 to make sure that everything went out the 19th or 20th– the last mailing day to get stuff before Christmas.

In workshop news…not much. I helped Rocketpants finish up a shaving brush, and sold all three that we had listed on etsy. Haven’t even done much with the pens.

I did pick up a big box of Manzanita, but haven’t even opened the box yet to see what I got. Maybe I can make a vase or something – should be pretty if I get around to it.

Between work and children I feel like I have been too stressed out to do much, but maybe the new house will inspire something. After we finish moving in of course.

In honor of my blog and logo – I bought a t-shirt from Robotarot – the Hanged Man of course – check out his others, they are equally awesome! And then awesomeness of awesomeness I recieved a print of the picture for Christmas! #1 of 10! Thanks Rocketpants!!!

Oh – and we bought a new digital SLR! A Canon T2i. Nice. Hope to have pictures to share soon.

Happy Holidays everyone!

Late July, er.. August, no wait October 2011- Ends of Eras

2011-10-31T12:30:00.003-06:00

Late August 2011- Ends of Eras

The end of the one child era:

When I started this post more than three months ago, the imminent arrival of our newest daughter Penelope, stress levels in the design studio had increased. This meant that I was stressed out at the time, because the studio is all in my head. Not that I am any less busy now, but stress levels seem to have decreased somewhat.

Little Penny arrived on July 25, 5 days early, satisfying both Erica, who wanted it to be a little early, and me, because I didn’t get the call while I was at work.

She's grown a bit since July :)

I made quite a bit of pen progress prior to her arrival, and a little afterward, and Erica has taken pictures of them now, so they are in my ballpark again to write up descriptions for them for posting at the store (www.acrylicandsteel.etsy.com).

I’ve now made slimline, slimline pro, Designer NT, Polaris, .30 cal bullet, and big cigar rollerball/ballpoint pens, some fountain pens (several styles), two sketch pencils, several light pulls, a salt grinder, a bottle stopper, and a ice cream scoop. I'm probably missing some at this point. Wood turning is fun!

I tried to make a few more than I have, and made a few mistakes. I tried several times to make an Ancient Kauri pen, with a variety of problems. I did manage a AK light pull though. Hopefully by the time I finish this post I will have been successful. I've broken a couple of click pens, not sure why they aren't working right - so far only one success on those.

Friend Bill, who will be off to Art School in London in a couple of weeks, enlisted my aid in making a special pen for a friend, and whipped up a nice simple maple slimline for himself. Bills gone for a year and we miss him, but the pen got finished and a similar one for a friend of the friend as a result!

Friends Pen

Friend of Friends Pen

I just wrapped up a pair of knives, both for family, a nice hunter and a santoku style kitchen knife. Still have 8-9 in the moderately close phase, but not there yet. The most recent of all was an interesting hunter/fighter knife that I made for friend Rocketpants' trip to Australia. I finished it in time, and it went off and returned with him.

The end of the charcoal forge era:

In addition to being a proud father of a new child, I am also the proud owner of a NEW FORGE!!! Finally, I’ve moved from my interesting but inconsistent charcoal forge to a gas NC Tool Whisper Forge. Hopefully this will give me a little more flexibility, a more rapid heat up, a higher temp, etc…

Sadly, I haven't had the time or mental energy lately to work much on it, but it is a lot faster to get going..

This brings me to the experimental phase:

Mokume gane – I’ve stacked about 24 layers of brass, copper and nickel-silver sandwiched in steel, heated and hammered. Results...Not so good, some bits worked, other bits didn't. Probably the wrong kind of flux. Better luck next time.

Wire Damascus – Using some nasty rusty wire from some flood barriers, I’ve heated, fluxed and hammered. I’m not happy with it at this point, so I will probably do it again, or fold and repeat. I think the rust may have interfered with a good weld. Definitely need to work on my forge welding skills - all of my welding skills are pretty much non-existent though.

I think I'll leave it at that.

Happy Halloween Everyone!

Autumn, Crazy Horse, Uncle Jed, and Rust

2011-05-13T07:00:00.004-06:00

If I wrote this blog more often, would anyone actually read it?

Maybe. Probably not though. I can’t say I promote it much.

So, in the news… Erica is due at the end of July with (odds are) baby girl number 2.

This is exciting, as it will:

1. Give Autumn a moving toy to play with for the foreseeable future.

2. Fulfill replacement value reproduction

3. Reward the parents with a tax break

4. Be another cute child

5. Give the grandparents something new to talk about

This is less exciting because it will require:

1. The purchase of Diapers for a few more years

2. Another baby seat, filling the car completely

3. Tolerance of house being a disaster for additional years

4. More of Mommies time, leaving less for Daddy

5. And will reduce the number of hours that Daddy can sleep

Generally, blacksmith shops are not considered very baby friendly environments. Carpentry shops are almost as bad. And Blade smith shops the worst of both worlds, plus some sharp edges.

I don’t know why, but people seem concerned about mixing a child (or children) with limited hand to eye coordination with a scattered and disorganized pile of blades you could shave with. Go figure.

I don’t think that I have ever seen Autumn hold a knife the wrong way, and she knew what they were and what they were called before she was 2.

I keep her out of the shop mostly because I don’t have protective gear small enough and she doesn’t like to wear it when it falls off like that. Also because she makes it more likely that I will hurt myself due to the distraction.

At least she can’t really open the door to the shop while I am working yet. But I can’t imagine that day is too far away. Sigh.

And here are some recent pictures of Autumn, since I was talking about her...

With her brand new big girl skates!

And again...

and just waking up from a nap...

News item 2: I spent last week at the Native American Fish and Wildlife Society’s national annual conference at Crazy Horse Memorial in South Dakota.

Somewhat relaxing, pretty, nice and cool. Reminded me of Northern Michigan.

Now I’m back, trying to catch up at work. Sigh.

News Item 3: I did finish another knife though: Uncle Jeds Country Skinner!

UJCS: AR 61: 5 3/4" Nesmuck Style Blade of hammer textured Cru-Forge V, 11 1/4" Overall. Handle of recycled Texas fence post - might be some sort of Locust? Pins are brass tube, with copper filling. Black vulcanized contrasting liners.

And Finally: Then one of my co-workers brought me a piece of rust that was masquerading as a knife... a little WD-40, grinding, polishing, and effort later - and minus one blade that snapped off. We have a functional knife again!

Open... (there is another functional blade also)

and closed...

That's all for now folks :)

Bench Update - Shaving Brushes

2011-04-23T08:45:00.001-06:00

Bench Update

I have a lot of projects on the bench right now.

Recently I discovered a place that sells hair knots for shaving brushes, so I bought a few as samples to try out. And then I played with my lathe and turned a bunch of proto-shaving brush handles. I didn’t really have a good idea before turning on the lathe how big they should be, but made a nice variety ranging from a huge piece that I made from purpleheart, to a tiny little tulipwood. Turns out that the smaller size is better for brushes. Right now I have handles of tulipwood, purpleheart, cocobolo, wormy pecan, salt cedar (tamarisk), pear, manzanita, apricot, and recycled ironwood fencepost, and I may be forgetting one or two more. I only have three brushes, boar (coarse), black badger (pretty soft), and silvertip badger (softer). All brushes don’t fit in all handles, but let me know if you are interested.

I bought a bunch of new wood, mostly domestic: Hickory, red gum, spalted ambrosia maple, rainbow poplar, and I swear there was another that I can’t remember. I use a lot of exotics, but some of these have some nice character as well. We’ll see what they turn into.

Knife-wise, I have a couple of big chef’s knives in progress (both CPM 154 Stainless), at least three full tang hunting knives (two drop point, one nesmuk), a few partial tang hunters, a couple daggers, and some miscellaneous others. I’m getting ready to start a couple more, with the basic idea of simple and full length tangs, so I can try out a couple of new handle ideas.

I’ve got some fancy decoration ideas for a couple of knives as well, like for finishing the copper and cholla dagger shown above. It will be pretty southwestern, lots of copper and turquoise. I just have to get around to doing some filework on the guard and pommel.

Using that idea I made this fancy manzanita brush with inlays of turquoise and copper.

That doesn’t sound like too much does it? Maybe it’s just that I don’t have any time.

A month or so late, but better than never...

2011-03-12T10:26:00.002-07:00

I started this post more than almost two months ago now, and finally polished it off. Always too much to do, and I never want to get on the computer once I get home.

One of my coworkers brought me a couple of old fence posts of unknown species, but definately something pretty dense, and he called it ironwood, so I thought I would polish a couple up and see what it looked like with some oil.

Old Fence Post Old Fence Stay

I recently finished a project for me with the old post for a handle...

AR60 in hand (mine)

In Sheath

With Sheath

AR60 - Drop Point Hunter - Full tang - Cold Blued (Formula 44/40) Cru Forge V, 4 3/4" blade, 9 5/8" overall, recycled ironwood(?) fencepost handle, brass pins, red vulcanized liner, stainless thong tube. Horizontal draw sheath.

I also finished up a project that started quite a while ago, when a couple of the guys came over and I let them pound on some steel. I decided to go ahead and finish up one of those blanks, to be provided as a birthday present. The first handle attempt failed, but I like the one it ended up with also. I’m pretty happy with how it turned out overall, even though it cost me some blood. Part of the polishing process involves a lot of finer and finer grits of sandpaper, and I thought I was almost ready to stop one evening, when I found out the pointy way, that I had already passed the time to stop. So, I added another ½ inch stab wound to my right thumb, which interferes with a lot of things. Sigh. But that was last Tuesday, so it didn’t impact this weekend too much. Not too sure what I would call the style of this one. Utility/paring seems to be the most appropriate. Still need to make the sheath though.

In Hand (Erica's)

With Sheath

In Sheath

AR59 – 3 5/8” Blade, 9” Overall, O1 tool steel, hand forged, heat treated and hand polished to 2000 grit. Macassar Ebony Handle, Brass Pins.

I plan on an On-the-bench update too, but that will have to be another day.

Later y'all.

From the bench - Mid January

2011-01-19T10:00:00.000-07:00

I had a pretty good weekend in the shop. Actually got to fire up the forge TWICE!

Now I don’t know if my shoulder is sore from the tetanus shot or the forging J

I put together a couple of stock removal stainless blades, and heat treated them: one dagger (CPM154), one small clip-point (S35VN). I don’t know why I keep working on daggers, since they are such a pain in the butt, but I do anyway. I’ve got some ideas for this one – possibly a cholla handle with crushed turquoise and copper powder in the gaps, maybe a little ebony and a carved copper guard. We’ll see what actually happens. No real designs yet on the clip point.

Also heat treated another old file knife – this one is looking kind of like a steak knife. The jury is still out though.

Upside down...

I also started a couple of forging projects, one in CPM154 – probably a santoku, and one in Cru Forge V – small hunter. I have plans for both of them – one is a gift. The other I am thinking of a cord wrapped handle.

I also cast my bronze into a bar. I will try forging it next time. I hope it moves pretty well and doesn’t just crack and shatter. We’ll see.

I also (finally) added the stems to the pear knife stand.

Now if I can just finish the stand of the Manzanita Chef’s Knife…

There's more, but its a secret....

Goodbye 2010

2011-01-10T11:05:00.007-07:00

I think this year went by faster than any other that I’ve experienced. I know that perspectives change a little as you age, but I think that this is about the most stable year I’ve had in recent memory, and that lack of upheavals may have had something to do with the speed with which it passed. Just hypothesizing. We’ll see how 2011 goes.

Since the last post, almost two months ago, I can’t say that I have spent all that much time in the shop, and in the last week or so it has been cold enough that I haven’t wanted too. Despite that, I have wrapped up a few projects, and am almost finished with a couple others.

The revised AR36 – now known as the pear knife, is much cooler now. I did some wood burning on the pearwood handle, and almost finished up a stand made of a couple of pears that I turned out of the same pear wood. They are waiting for stems, but this is what they look like now.

AR56 - I made a hunting knife for one of Erica’s dad’s friends. It’s a pretty simple one – basic drop point hunter, hidden tang, Madrone Burl handle, with a stainless guard. Simple leather sheath, but it turned out OK.

AR57 – Finally wrapping up the Dog Bowie. Sub-hilt fighter with Bowie style Stainless blade, finished with a gloss gunmetal blue bake-on Gun-kote protectant. I tried my hand at casting bronze for the guards, and set dog teeth (provided by the customer) between the guards. The sheath also has an inset panel with a cast bronze dog footprint. The handle is ebony and spalted maple.

I didn’t make any jewelry this year, but I did make a door. A fairy door that is. Not my usual thing, but Mom asked, so I gave it a shot. This one is cut from Ancient (30,000+ y.o.) Kauri from New Zealand, with a Pear stoop. The frame is domestic wood. I did some wood burning and painting, and Erica printed the stained glass window. Sadly it doesn’t open, but I’ve heard that only faeries can open them anyway.

The Door and The Door showing stained "glass".

I’ve got some idea’s for the shop, but you’ll just have to wait and see.

On the 11th month of 2010, my workshop gave to me…

2010-11-28T21:20:00.005-07:00

One month ago I posted the Blackthorn Knife, which is winging its way off to Australia. I can’t believe it’s been a month. I can’t actually believe that 2010 is almost over either, I feel like it just got here. Oh well. It’s been a good year.

These days I have a hard time remembering what I did a half hour ago, let alone a month, but I’ve definitely made some knife progress.

I finished up a few revisions – most notably AR36, which I think will still change a little - I want to do a little wood burning on the handle...

AR36 Pear handled Chef's knife

and AR39,

AR39 - Sycamore and Amaranth Fighter - Leaf Spring Knife

completed a new Kukri-Machete (AR52),

AR52 - Curly Maple Kukri

a set of two chef’s knives(AR53 and 54 and their blocks),

AR53 - 6" Chefs Knife - Marblewood handle, Oak and Coccobolo Block

AR54 Redwood Burl 6" Chefs Knife, Rock Maple and Cherry Block

made Creepy Cleaver Mk II (Monster Cleaver!(AR55)),

9 1/2" Monster Cleaver - Staghorn Sumac Handle

am making slow progress on John from New Jersey’s blue stainless bowie and threw a couple new irons in the fire (Bigger Chef’s knife , probably paring knife, another mid-size kitchen knife and a hunting knife).

I am also continuously amazed at how dirty my hands get, even after washing a few times, using pumice soap and all that, and they still have little tiny metal bits in all the pores and crevices.

Sigh.

That's all for now folks.

Happy Holidays, and hopefully I will have more to share before Christmas!

Adam

Blackthorn Blade

2010-10-30T09:06:00.008-06:00

The Blackthorn Blade is finally finished, complete with a show stand (made of ebony and holly), and a belt sheath (basswood liner, dyed 8oz cowhide back and loop, bison leather front). The concept and the blackthorn of the handle were provided by NRJJ.

Blackthorn (Prunus spinosa)is a tree with an interesting history, being used as the traditional Irish shillelagh, walking sticks, and sloe gin from the berries. I was intrigued by the idea, and had a blade that seemed appropriate, in a sgian dubh style, so, with some discussion we decided to go for it.

It’s been quite a process to get this knife to where it is today. I’ve posted a few pictures of the process, but thought it might be nice to put them all in one place.

The blade is hand forged of 1095 high carbon steel in my charcoal forge and quenched and heat treated by me as well.

I worked on the blade first and, keeping with the blackthorn concept, put some vine and thorns file-work on the spine of the blade. This was my first file-work of that type.

Next I added a stacked water buffalo horn and nickel-silver spacer, to blend from the blade to the handle.

NRJJ sent me a number of root and branch pieces of blackthorn to pick the right one for his knife. One of them stood out to me as the obvious choice, so I shaped the end knob on the sander.

The wood itself is pale for the most part, but this particular piece has some interesting coloration in the knob, which stands out pretty well, and contrasts nicely with the dark bark.

Unfortunately the wood was a little thin as soon as you got any distance from the knob. In order to match the spacer, and provide a sufficiently robust handle, I had to split the blackthorn horizontally, which left a big gap between the top and bottom. I put it together anyway, and smoothed out the transition between the spacer and the handle, exposing some of the pale wood.

We decided that a black material would be the best to fill that gap, and to contrast with the wood. It worked pretty well, but is a pretty messy process.

In cleaning off the excess, some more of the dark brown bark came off. So, I had a situation – how to blend the very pale wood, with the dark bark. I cut the bark near the knob so that it wouldn’t peel, and then started applying layer after layer of finish.

After putting it all together, I decided it needed something shiny to break up the black, so I filed a couple of stainless pins, and that worked out pretty well. After a few more layers of finish, it was about done.

I worked the blade to hair popping sharp, and had a finished knife – except for marking the blade, which fortunately I didn’t screw up either.

An idea popped into my head when I was looking at the knife and its contrasts in black and white. I thought – hey! Let’s turn a ball of ebony and holly. That would be fun. So I glued together some ebony and holly, and spun away. The leftovers became the sides of the stand, and the ball holds the blade. A little arty, but I like it.

Since that was a little odd, I decided to make a sheath as well. I think it turned out pretty well too, and is much more understated than the stand.

Final result: ~NRJJ~ II: 4" Blade, 11" Overall.

And that... is that.

Unusual, but fun.

A few more knives

2010-10-10T20:33:00.003-06:00

So...

I've had a little more time now that Erica isn't playing roller derby. And I get to spend a little bit more time in the shop. I also spend a little bit more time at work now that I am the (acting) Director of Environmental and Natural Resources for the Pueblo of Laguna. As usual I am experimenting with a few things, and here are the current results.

AR49 - Redwood Hunter. Nice little drop point hunter, with a blacked out blade. The matte black Gunkote is really easy to work with! Much easier than the Gloss Gun Blue, which you will see in a while. AR49 has a 3 3/4" blade of forged S35VN, and is 9 1/4" overall, the handle is redwood burl from northern California, and brass pins hold it together.

AR50 - Black Mesquite Tanto. Only my second tanto, this one has a slightly dropped point, which might make it a drop point tanto? I don't know, knife naming conventions are a little odd. I'd never used black mesquite before either, didn't even know it existed. AR50 has a 3 3/8" blade of forged S35VN and is 9 1/8" overall. I hand ground the stainless guard, and am pretty happy with how it turned out. It also has a stainless pommel, and the black mesquite handle is held together with stainless pins.

AR51 - Paring knife? Another stab at using file steel. And some slightly bizarre handle material - Saguaro cactus spine. Not quite as dramatic as cholla cactus, but maybe one of the other pieces will stand out more. AR51 has a 2 3/4" blade made from an old file, and is 8 3/8" overall. It has Saguaro cactus spine as the handle, with kingwood accents at the front and back, and a single brass pin to hold the tang in place. Not my standard handle shape, but I like the way it looks. Kind of a Japanese style in my mind.

My kukri isn't done yet, but here is a taste.

Thats all for today.

Adam

New Knives!

2010-09-18T21:34:00.006-06:00

OK, some of them are really old – like AR32 for example (on the right), which I’m pretty sure I started in 2008 – But it’s done now, and even has a sheath.

AR32 – Moonstone Dagger

4 7/8” Blade made of hand-forged O1 tool steel. 10 ¾” overall length. The guard is made from a piece of Gibeon meteorite, the handle is Gabon ebony held together with stainless steel pins. There is a moonstone cabochon set in the pommel end (although you can’t see it in this pic).

With it is AR 40 (on the left), which I think will be a necklace dagger – that is what it was designed as at least.

AR40 has a 2 7/8” blade made of file steel, and is 6 ½” overall. Some of the file cuts are still visible on one side. The handle is also Gabon ebony, and it is held together with brass and mosaic pins.

I also finally finished up the toffee and oyster knives for Teddystartedit. She sent me the English walnut that the toffee knives and their blade guards are made of. The are intended to be used to break up huge quantities of walnut toffee next month.

Walnut Toffee Knives – Both of these are about 6 ½” overall with approximately 3 ½” blades. I turned the handles from English walnut. The ferrules are made of bearing bronze, with a black vulcanized spacer for contrast, mosaic pins, and an onyx cabochon set in the end of each.

The Pear Oyster Knife is also about 6 ½” overall, with a 3 ¼” blade. The handle is turned from fruiting pear – which is very pleasant to work with! Its ferrule is ebony, and has a mosaic pin as an accent.

Next is AR45 – and I’m not really sure what to call it, but it works very well on leather, and has a good mass to it in the hand.

AR45 – unusual kitchen knife.

The 3” blade is has some forging scale left on, and is made of 1080 high carbon steel. It is 8 ¼” overall with a full tang. The handle is cocobolo, with copper pins and tubing. Its stand is also cocobolo.

Then AR46 – Tulip carver. It has a 2 ¼” blade of Cru Forge V, and is 6 ¾” overall. Its handle is tulipwood and is held together with brass Loveless bolts. I haven’t figured out what to do about a stand or sheath for it.

AR47 is sitting in my kitchen working as a paring knife.

It is made from an old file, and the hamon stands out on occasion, but not in all pictures. It has a 3” blade and is 8 3/8” overall. The handle is figured bocote, and it has stainless pins.

Last but not least for this post is the Tactical Hunter AR48. It’s 4 ½” blade is forged from CPM S35VN stainless steel, an is 10 1/8” overall. The blade is coated with a matte black finish called Gunkote. The guard and acorn nuts are copper. The handle is made of black canvas micarta.

And I think that’s all for now. Still a lot left on the bench though!

Laters!

Novelty and Experiments

2010-09-02T18:56:00.005-06:00

A month or three ago I picked up a product called Gunkote by Brownells, as a result of conversations with a couple of clients, and some research. The product is supposed to protect metal (from rust, scratches, general yuck, etc…), and make it look, well, that depends on the color you buy, but in this case, Matte Black. And it is supposed to stick to stainless, which ordinary bluing chemicals will not. Not paying attention when I purchased it, it calls for sand blasting the parts with 120grit al-ox prior to a matte gray before coating. I don’t have a sand blaster.

I’ve also recently picked up some fancy schmancy CPM S35-VN stainless steel from Crucible (through www.usaknifemaker.com) which is supposed to be the sh**, as they used to say back when I swore more. It is a lot thinner stock than I usually work with, but that should play to the strengths of the steel (ie toughness).

Thirdly, once upon a time I bought some Black Canvas Micarta. Generally I use exotic hardwoods, but I thought it might be interesting at some point.

And lastly, I decided that I should be carrying one of my own knives a little more often. I had been carrying Folder 3, but got sick of stabbing myself on its poorly closed blade when I went for my keys. Right now, I am carrying Folder 2, which is a nice little (blade is under 2”) knife that turned out ok, but not really nice enough to sell. I’m not really in the mood to do Folder 4 yet, so a fixed blade it is.

And a fine time to try out all of the above.

The forging, shaping, grinding, or the 35VN went pretty well and I like the shape it turned out. The quenching and tempering seemed to go well, so I decided to move on…

I brought the blade to about 120 grit, then went back and scoured it with 80 in circles, then soaked it in some acid for a little while to etch the groves a little deeper and get rid of any polished bits that might make the Gunkote flake off. Coated liberally with baking powder and scrubbed with that for a bit to make sure all the acid was gone. Washed with soap and water, washed again with degreaser, and more soap and water. Then put it down and sprayed it. With a little too much vigor apparently, since it started dripping. So I scrubbed it off again, cleaned it again, grabbed it with the vice-grip, and gently sprayed both sides, and set it to dry with any dripping headed for the handle, which will be a hidden tang.

After waiting the indicated 30+ minutes for the blade to dry, I stuck it in the pre-heated kitchen oven, and baked at 310F for 60 minutes-ish. Then took it out and let it cool in the shop. Looks pretty (if you like matte black), and all of those 80/120 grit scratches are gone too!

Can’t tell yet how it holds up, but so far so good for the first two experiments.

Experiment three… Micarta. It grinds very easily, smells bad, is very dusty, seems to glue very well. The canvas pattern is interesting, and it feels pretty good in the hand.

I put it all together with a copper guard, a couple of copper acorn nuts and some black epoxy.

It looks very military to me. Not my usual style at all. If I worked in Kydex, I might be tempted to

make that sort of sheath, but I don’t and don’t like it either. So leather it will be, probably with copper fixin’s. I haven’t quite decided yet if I want to do a horizontal or vertical carry sheath. We’ll see.

Late August Bench Update

2010-08-27T12:57:00.003-06:00

Updates and progress for late August…

This isn’t really ALL that’s on the bench, but most at least. The picture below has the new Kukri/machete, which isn’t above, and its missing the three oyster/toffee knives, and the Blackthorn blade, which will get its own post soon I think, I think that there are a couple other ones missing too, hard to keep track.

Obviously there are a couple of knives that are almost done. From the top … Paring knife with bocote handle – which is undergoing kitchen testing; Wood carving knife with tulip handle; Revised Santoku with redheart handle (requenching a thin factory blade didn’t well, so it will do kitchen duty at home as well); Odd kitchen chopper with Coccobolo handle; and a smattering of others which aren’t quite as done.

If these don’t look quite the same as the blades on the right side of the first picture, it’s because they evolved a little between the two pictures, under the grindstone. From the top: 1080 Kukri/Machete; CPM 154 Bowie; S35VN Hunter; (right) Small File steel knife; and a pair of utility knives, and they have moved on since this picture too. One of the utility knives is going to be Tanto style now. And the Bowie is looking pretty sweet (if I do say so myself J).

The Blackthorn Knife is progressing well, as are the toffee knives – and I hope to finish them very soon.

More soon...I hope :)

Perfect Knife

2010-08-05T12:18:00.003-06:00

You’d think that as a knife maker, it would be my goal to make the perfect knife. Or at least the perfect knife for me. But what is that? Do I have the skills?

Problem 1: I like the function of folding knives and generally prefer the appearance of a fixed blade. OK, so that isn’t too big a deal, I can certainly work the ideas together from a design standpoint.

Problem 2: Folding knives are a pain in the butt to make. My shop is pretty basic, and precision machining is not really within my repertoire. I’ve made 3 folders so far, and the first one turned out the best. Isn’t that backwards? 1 and 3 are liner locks, and 2 is a lock back, so it was a different mechanism. I like the solidity of a lock back, but liner locks are easier to make. 3 is my carry knife at the moment, and it doesn’t snap closed right. Reaching into a pocket for a wallet and coming out bloody from a partially opened knife is not a good thing. Otherwise the knife is pretty good. But not perfect.

Problem 3. I like assisted opening knives. And don’t know how to make one. I had a great little knife from SOG , a Flash II (http://sogknives.com/store/TFSA-98.html) ($84), and lost it a year or two ago. It had a few issues. A: Partially serrated, some people like it, I don’t; B: The lock wasn’t in the right place to make the assisted opening useful. Grab knife, try to flick open, locked, use other hand to unlock, flick. Not good; C: Not hard enough, so lost its edge too soon; D: Not the most ergonomic handle. Pretty much everything else was awesome, the assisted opening mechanism, the low clip, the TiNi coating, the size. I was sad to loose it, but I never replaced it either.

I think the next step up in a factory knife for me would be a Benchmade 585BK MiniBarrage, an assisted opening, plain edge, harder/better steel, Benchmades Proprietary BK coated knife. $140. (http://www.benchmade.com/products/585)

I’ve thought about buying either a kit knife or a new assisted opening knife, ransacking it for parts, and making my own blade, but that seems like cheating. I did pick up a lockback knife kit, and plan on doing some part mimicking, despite the cheating aspect.

Problem 4. I don’t really know what I want it to look like. That’s really a big problem. I can figure out the blade shape I think, since I like drop points. And I like a relatively short blade – I don’t usually do a lot of big cutting jobs. Should feel substantial, but not heavy. I like natural materials for a handle, but there are so many!

I can usually figure out what I don’t want it to look like. For example, I love the technology behind the diamond blade friction forging

http://www.diamondbladeknives.com/productList.aspx, and the function seems spectacular – superhard edge but not brittle, effectively stainless. But I don’t like the appearance of ANY of them. No offense guys – just not my style. I also can’t afford them (this one is $495).

Maybe the real problem is that there is no perfect knife, even for one person, but I think that I might just be approaching the time when I am ready to start trying for it. And, successful or not, sometimes it is the journey, not the finish line that is the real benefit.

Temper Temper

2010-07-14T22:00:00.003-06:00

I've just learned that it is hard to take pictures of hamons (or temper lines). When they do show up on my knives they are usually pretty hard to see, but this one jumped out at me when I was still down at 120 grit. The blade is made of an old file, so is probably W1 or W2, which are supposed to make pretty nice hamons. It seems to be true in this case at least.

The pictures are a little out of focus, but at least the lines are visible. They did fade for a while at around 800 grit, and then disappeared when I ran the fine polish buffing wheel on the blade. The lines didn't show up again with 1000, 1500 grit or flitz polish, but I remembered reading something about dipping in acid to bring it out. I tried it, and surprisingly out it popped.

I like the lines, they add some interest to an otherwise simple blade. I guess I'll have to try harder to get them to pop out.

Just thought I'd like to share.

On the Bench update

2010-07-13T12:02:00.003-06:00

It's been a few months since I've had an on the bench update. I think that pretty much all of the ones from last time have moved on to some form of completion. Of the new pieces, some obviously need a lot of work, and some are pretty close.

From the top: New machete - although the old one didn't end up quenching or tempering properly, there was enough interest that I'm trying again. This time with 1080 carbon steel. Not quite as cool as using a old leaf spring, but at least a known material.

Future Bowie - This will be my first bowie, a slightly more advanced version is in the picture below, currently a 6 3/4" blade of CPM 154 stainless steel. It'll be a pretty big knife.

4" Dagger (on the left) - have I mentioned that daggers are a pain? This one is made of CPM S35VN stainless. It is coming along better than expected. I anticipate a slightly more elaborate version of the larger of the two daggers below. (It is the same dagger as in the next picture down).

Light Hunter, backup knife (also see top knife in pic below) - this is also CPM S35VN stainless, which turns out to be pretty good to work with, but still not as easy as high carbon. I understand the desire for stainless stuff though. Anyway, I think that this will be a very pretty piece in the end.

Small Paring knife - This one has been around for a little while, but now it is quenched and tempered. File steel - probably W1 or W2.

Small Utility knife - I decided to turn this little scrap of O1 into a blade also, I think it will make a pretty nice chip carving knife or for art projects or something.

Oyster Knives 1 and 2 - Making slow progress on these, it took a while to draw out the extra steel, but they are getting close, and the handles are making progress too, even if you don't get to see those yet :) One is obviously more polished than the other. They have both been quenched and tempered.

Mushroom knife? CM154 (not CPM) NRJJ suggested this idea, and it is making slow progress, its been quenched and tempered, but needs some grinder work before moving on to next stage.

And finally, the leaf spring fighter - version 3 of the LOR machete, and the last try before I give up on this leaf spring. I left it a little thicker this time, but only time will tell.

I actually made a little more progress after taking the top pic, so here are the backup hunter, 4" dagger, and Bowie as of July 12.

The blackthorn knife inspired by NRJJ and Sgian Dubh scottish knives has made a little progress, Water buffalo horn and nickel silver for the bolster, and the future handle material of blackthorn.

And I'm just putting the last coats of finish on the upper dagger (O1 steel), and working on a neck sheath for the smaller (file steel dagger).

There is certainly more in the shop than those, and I still need to make a lot more sheaths for some of the older knives, and knife blocks, and maybe a presentation box or three. But you get the idea.

Take care all!

Stuff for men

2010-06-26T16:55:00.001-06:00

I don't usually do treasuries on etsy, but I thought I should do one that was all guy stuff. Enjoy!

Adam

Stuff for Men selected by man

hand forged purple hear...
thesmARTaleck
$125.00 USD
Sparrow Bird Skull Neck...
BlackSparrowJ...
$55.00 USD
6 oz Distressed Flask
kbratcher
$40.00 USD
Pretty Little Obsidian ...
richmo90
$50.00 USD
Afzelia Burl Majestic F...
76Winger
$161.96 USD
Tory Brown Leather Wrap...
urbanheirlooms
$55.00 USD
Carved Elk Antler Tooth...
josephlutter
$25.00 USD
a Leather Belt in a Mod...
fix8ion
$100.00 USD
Leather Top Hat
SilverLeafCo...
$115.00 USD
The Pinnacle Box
watswood
$395.00 USD
Bloodwood Wood Ring - H...
jewelrybyjohan
$139.00 USD
Baby skull rattle - Nim...
thesmARTaleck
$85.00 USD
Rhino skinner- C. Thoma...
theknife
$425.00 USD
The Bizarre Mating Ritu...
snegoratchka
$1,200.00 USD
Leather cuff Bracelet C...
FamilySkiners
$70.00 USD
Scimitar Bladed Skinner...
AcrylicAndSteel
$400.00 USD

Just Lathing Around

2010-06-13T11:23:00.004-06:00

Obviously I must have been being lazy, since I haven’t posted anything in a long time.

Life and work have been a little hectic and more stressful than usual, and then I had a custom order with a deadline. The plus side is that that is done. It is a Harley Davidson inspired Chef’s Knife (AR 43, 5 ½” blade, 11” overall, ebony and bloodwood with stainless accents), and a matching block. I’m pretty happy with how it turned out.

I’ve also been playing with the lathe a little, some for fun, some to get some ideas for the custom toffee/oyster knives that are due in a couple of months. So I made these sample handles:

Amaranth (Purpleheart)

Pear, cherry and salt cedar

Then I prepped the actual walnut, let it dry some more, and then spun it down to the rough shapes I’m looking for, without embellishments yet. There are some wormholes that I will have to deal with, but I think I’ll end up with a nice produce eventually:

Walnut

I also made this oak ball:

Oak Ball.

I think my lathe works pretty well for being a cheap as it was, and the tools as well (the set for the price of one quality tool).

I also mostly finished up my second Puukko, now I just need to make sheaths for them:

AR44 Tiger Maple and Bronze

And, I’ve slowly been making progress on NRJJ’s next project, a Blackthorn handled sgian dubh. I’ve done some filework on the blade, vine and thorns pattern. Here are some concept and materials photos:

Potential Handles

Vine and thorns filework

Concept photo, I was thinking of Nickel-Silver and Horn for the bolster, and a nickel-silver pin to hold it all together. We'll see.

So, as usual, just lathing around.

Adam

Camping

2010-05-29T13:00:00.003-06:00

We went camping up in the Jemez Mountains last weekend, and climbing, and sight-seeing. Autumn came along of course, so did our friend Jon “Rocketpants”, and his dog Melvin. We were out of cell phone range for most of the weekend, which was kind of nice; and a little nerve-wracking since there was a work issue that was ongoing. We all survived without our electric leashes though.

Rocketpants

Melvin

Autumn was a little afraid when we arrived at the Redondo Campground, it was dark and different, and we didn’t bring enough blankets, so it was a little cold for Erica and me. Autumn doesn’t take up that much blanket, but it was enough to take it away from the two of us. I ended up wearing my jacket to keep warm. We bought a couple more blankets for the next night.

Erica

So, after very little sleep the first night, we had bacon and eggs and hot chocolate (or coffee) for breakfast, and headed out to go climbing at Los Conchas. It was already pretty busy when we got there, and the route that I wanted to go up was occupied, so I picked a line that had an easy looking beginning…and it was for the first two bolts, easy enough that I wouldn’t have felt uncomfortable without a rope. Then it got hard. The headwall was pretty much vertical with small and reachy holds. After a lot of struggle I made it up, and set up a top-rope for Erica and ‘pants. I haven’t been able to figure out what the route was rated, it’s not in either guidebook, and I can’t find anything on-line either. Now I really want to know, since I felt pretty wrecked after that one climb.

We did the garden wall after that, without too much difficulty on anyone’s part, then repacked everything, and wandered along the stream, had some lunch, continued on, ‘pants and I climbed on “the sponge” and then we called it a day as far as climbing went. Autumn enjoyed playing in the stream, Melvin enjoyed the spontaneous “dog parties”. Autumn also enjoyed sitting on Melvin.

Autumn on Melvin

We headed off to the unusual town of Los Alamos after that, to pick up gas and let Autumn sleep.

Then a little more hiking, where we lost the trail almost immediately, tried again, then practiced cartwheels in a meadow for a bit before heading back to camp.

Dinner was burgers and brats, and beer, corn on the cob and FIRE! I love camp fires. We played with Rocketpants’ firestarter for a while then cheated and used a lighter out of laziness. Eventually it was bedtime and we spent a slightly warmer night with our new blankets.

FIRE!

Sunday we got up a little later, had bacon and eggs and FIRE! For breakfast, then packed up the camp, and headed to Jemez Falls for a little while, where Autumn threw her bottle down the falls. Bad Girl! After that we headed to Bandolier National Monument, and unfortunately they don’t really allow dogs, so ‘pants and Melvin left us, and Erica Autumn and I toured the place. It was pretty fascinating, but I was pretty tired too. So was Autumn, so I got to carry her a lot. She still walks kinda slow too. I suspect Erica will write a little more about Bandolier in her post over on Acrylicandsteel.

After Bandolier we headed home, had some spaghetti for dinner, and called it a night.

Not sure how something can be rejuvenating and exhausting at the same time, but that was what the weekend was all about.

Kiva Ladder

Red Wolf

2010-05-15T09:01:00.003-06:00

Painting by Ross Bach

I don’t think that it will surprise anyone if I mention that I read a fair amount of science fiction and fantasy. I don’t know what the first book was that got me started, whether it was my parents reading to me as a kid, or what it was they read that got me going, but I have loved the genres for a long time. Early in the memories are one of my dad reading to my sister and me some Isaac Asimov, and my aunt B giving me the first book of The Chronicles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander, I think that she got me my first Lord of the Rings trilogy as well. I don’t know if these are actually accurate memories or not, but it was a long time ago.

From there Dungeons and Dragons was a short step away, and that hobby of quintessential geekiness carried me up through highschool, with many many books and other role playing games thrown into the mix (Carwars, Battletech, Call of Cthulhu, Elfquest, TMNT/Hero’s Unlimited, Shadowrun, Cyberpunk, Whitewolf (Vampire/Werewolf/Mage), and I’m sure I am forgetting a few more.

Through that group of friends, I was introduced to the Society for Creative Anachronism, but I can’t say that I ever got truly involved, always too many other things going on – primarily school and work.

It is unsurprising I guess, that I have always loved knives and swords as a result of these hobbies, but I digress. I was talking about books, and in particular fantasy novels.

I just finished a new one, from a new author (at least to me). The Red Wolf Conspiracy by Robert V. S. Redick. I was pretty impressed. I don’t know why I really like stories set aboard ships, but I do. And it’s about a kid, so there is a coming of age aspect, and there is magic, but it isn’t overwhelming in a fireball sort of way, as usual, there are prophesies involved, but none of the classic demihumans, no elves, dwarves, etc, but there are crawlies (tiny people), and a few intelligent animals and many more interesting elements. There is a knife that keeps coming back, but I don’t know yet if it has a higher purpose, this is only book one after all.

Unlike a lot of books written with teen protagonists, it doesn’t have a lot of angst. There is a love-story, but it is more subtle, since the characters don’t really seem to have time for it, and there are plenty of things in the way. The motivations of all of the characters certainly are not clear yet, Nor are all of the affiliations, betrayals. I like the twists that keep popping up. A moderately insane captain adds a bit of spice.

In short – Good work Mr. Redick, I guess I’ll have to buy the next book, The Ruling Sea.

Inventory and Updates May 2010

2010-05-11T16:20:00.001-06:00

Inventory:

On a whim, I decided to lay out all the knives I had made and haven’t sold or given away on the floor of the shop. Some of them are posted over at Acrylicandsteel, but some I never got around to listing. I lay them out in numeric order AR5 – AR40, and put the other numbering systems to the side, the DSK series (made from Diamond Saw Blades), the L series (letter openers), The last remaining band saw knife (unnumbered), the lone SV (Sandvik), and the two folders. I included my personal carry knife, the kitchen knife that we use, and at least one that is not for sale, but if you are interested in any of them, let me know and I will come up with a price. Some of them have sheaths, most don’t, but I can always make those.

Anyway here is the overview.

Bdoodles’ and NJJ’s knives are in the mail! Finally!

Bdoodles knife is AR 38, and I forgot to measure it, so I can only give a materials list, but it’s a little bigger than AR37 (which was 9 ½” overall, with a 4 ½” edge). Description: Slicing/Boning Knife, Cru Forge V high carbon steel, hidden tang,the handle is made of blue mahoe, copper with turquoise inlay, aromatic cedar, with mosaic pin and copper tubing for accents. The stand is blue mahoe and aromatic cedar.

I know you’ve seen this one before, but it’s gorgeous, so enjoy it again:

NJJ’s knife doesn’t have an AR number, and I forgot to measure it also, although I think that I remember a 5 ½” blade, and about 10” overall. Its description is: Camp Knife with false edge on spine, Cold Blued Cru Forge V high carbon steel blade, full tang, Mule deer antler bolster, staghorn sumac handle, blued mild steel pins, suede leather thong with mule deer antler toggle and beads. Sheath is dyed 8oz leather with sinew and leather lacing, snaps are blued, and the beads are mule deer antler.

And here it is once again,

My anvil is no longer on the floor. This might not seem particularly exciting to most of you, but it is to me. No more crouching over or at least a lot less of it. I acquired a huge stump, routed out a spot for the anvil, and voila! Anvil stand.

The LOR Machete (AR39) is pretty much done. The heat treating didn’t go quite as planned since there is still a little ripple right on the edge of the blade, but the whole knife looks pretty interesting, and it will certainly cut. Can’t say I’m looking forward to using all the leather it will take to make a sheath though. I need to take it out into the field and do some chopping. The final specs on this one are: 10 1/4” Blade, 15 3/4” Overall. Machaira/Machete. Heavy Duty Truck Leaf Spring (Dodge?) Blade. Unknown drift wood for handle. Peened mild steel pins. Still needs a sheath.

I put a new handle on the little file dagger as well. Bodice dagger, 3 1/2" blade, 6 1/2" overall, file steel blade, handle is ebony with mosaic and brass pins. Looks much better, I think I will make a neck sheath for it. It is AR 40.

My first Puuku is finished too! AR 41: 3 3/4" blade, 7 3/4" overall, CM 154 stainless steel blade, Puuku style blade, bronze bolster, ornamental birch handle, with brass pins. Still needs a sheath too.

And, as you know from the last post, AR42 is done too: Creepy Cleaver, 5 3/8” blade, 10 1/2” overall, 1095 high carbon steel blade, red oak handle, framing nail pins, and a suede thong.

A set of custom orders has rolled in: a set of oyster knives with English walnut handles, a Harley inspired chef’s knife, possibly a dog inspired Bowie, and a few more maybes. I might have to start a waiting list one of these days.

Creepy Cool...(slightly modified from the Acrylic Version)

2010-05-09T15:21:00.001-06:00

My wife is the coolest! Who else would say…you should make me a creepy knife?! I’m itching to get started. I have just the chunk of steel… and that was 3 months ago.

If you know Erica, you know she likes creepy things. Creepy dolls, creepy paintings, zombies, skulls, etc.. I think that is fantastic, so obviously this was a project that I wanted to do, and to put a little thought into...

So…what is a creepy knife? I guess its one that you can imagine seeing in a horror movie, rusty or bloody or sinister. Is it creepier to have an odd bone saw or a bloody butcher knife, or a rusty machete, or… what about a cleaver?

I’ve seen butcher knives with blood stains enameled on. But that just isn’t going to…cut it.

Something super rusty would be cool, but unusable. Lightly rusted is ok. So nothing stainless.

Mostly I just kinda like the idea of a rusty cleaver.

So I started it…

It all started with the chunk of steel, in this case 1095 high carbon steel, which is what I started forging knives with a few years ago. This particular chunk is the heaviest I've worked with, at 1 5/8ths wide and 3/8ths of an inch thick. That’s a lot of metal to move with a little hammer. Makes me wish I had a power hammer, although I do like hand forging. Sometimes I wish for a hotter forge too, but charcoal is pretty good and it feels like being back in time (except for the Dustdevil blower that I use).

Here's the chunk, with Autumn's hand for scale:

And an intermediate stage:

I thought I had a couple more intermediate stages, but I can't find the pictures anywhere, its a pretty big jump to go from the above stage, to the below stage.

Before Quenching:

After a few forging sessions, and a little grinding, I got the shape about where I wanted, quenched it, and ground an edge to it, leaving the forging and quenching patina on the back edge as well as leaving it a little rough, and polished the actual edge.

After Quenching:

I decided to go with oak as the handle, because it looks kinda basic, and was torn between rough twine and leather for the keeper cord that it will hang from. In the creepy theme I probably should have tied it off in a noose, but didn't.

Anyway, I think it is pretty awesome, its heavy like a cleaver should be, sharp enough that you could probably shave with it, and creepy enough to meet the desired goal. We both kinda think that it should have a block to store it in, ya know, a head or skull or ribcage or something, but for now its going to hang on the wall.

I know its not rusty, but it did cut me a couple of times - I have all kinds of nicks on my hands - so its a little blood thirsty.

The final specs for AR42 (and I know I haven't published the specs for 38-41, they are ready though...) 5 3/8" Edge, 10 1/2" overall, 1095 high carbon, cleaver, Red Oak handle, 16penny nails for pins, suede leather strap.

And I finished it on Mothers day :) Happy Mothers Day Honey!

What do you think?

Dust

2010-04-26T11:23:00.005-06:00

Hi folks,

This weekend I managed to do some wrap-up. I finished up the sheath for NJJ, and a knife block for Bdoodles (See below for pictures). I did a little work on some of the other pending blades, but all of my grinding belts are worn out at this point and I need to order more to make better progress.

High quality steel eats up grinding belts pretty fast.Even my woodworking belt (only 1) is getting a little tired, but it still works. The drive belt of my band saw is wearing out too. Sometimes I think working with old and worn out equipment makes things more interesting. Sometimes its just a pain in the ass.

Usually when I work in the shop I wear a little bit of safety equipment, ear protection and eye protection. Wearing dust masks makes the safety glasses fog up. This weekend I had to go for ear and lung protection. As I was sanding down the pieces for the knife block, I noticed that my nose and throat were kinda gumming up. It seems that the fine dust of the Blue Mahoe doesn’t get along with me very well. Not the sniffles and irritation that cocobolo gives, but more of a clogging that I haven’t experienced with any other wood dust. As a result I took off the glasses and put on the mask. Maybe I should look into getting a combo set so I can breathe and see. Novel concept.

I think that I have already mentally spent my (hopefully) forthcoming tax return three or four times over, soI guess I will have to prioritize. I’d like my lungs to last for a few more years, so maybe that will make the cut.

Anyway, here are pictures of the finished products. The spec’s will come later.

Bdoodles

Boning/Slicing knife and block

Turquoise and copper detail

NJJ

Knife in Sheath

Knife

Enjoy!

Feast and Famine

2010-04-08T12:53:00.001-06:00

As is frequently the case, a period of high productivity is followed by a period of low productivity. Such is the case with Hangedmandesigns at the moment. Just after Erica and Autumn made it home from Savannah, we headed up to Colorado for a weekend of Roller Derby, ceasing all shop related activities. It was a tiring trip, two games in two days (which meant a lot of babysitting for me), and quite a bit of driving.

I was also disappointed to find out how expensive custom tang stamps for my knives would cost $186 dollars apiece. Ouch. I could probably take an engraving class for that if I had some spare time. Maybe I will try making my own with my little diamond Dremel tool bits. I’ve got some steel that should harden to the point that it will work. Another project…Sigh.

This weekend is Erica’s birthday, and I still need to do my taxes, so I don’t expect a lot of productivity then either. And the following weekend is more Roller Derby, in Tucson. Three games, two days. I’m not sure if I will be able to go to that one. If I don’t, I will get more done, but not get to see my wife, and I’ll have to babysit. Tough call.

Anyway, I need to finish up a couple of projects soon. Mostly NJJ’s sheath, and a stand/block for Bdoodles, and if I can get some…. Ok, there are always more projects, and I want them all done now so I can start new ones.

C’est la vie… Feast and Famine.

April 2010 in like a Lion

2010-04-01T12:02:00.001-06:00

Yesterday, March 31 – 80 degrees, today April 1, 50 and dropping with 35 mile per hour winds. That makes it pretty dusty out here in the desert.

Erica and Autumn made it back from Savannah yesterday, hurray! They had a good time out there and got to play in the ocean a little bit. I got quite a bit of work done too. Now I just need to take some pictures now that the camera is back.

Presuming I manage to do that as soon as I get home and post this tonight, I will go on….

From biggest to smallest in the almost done catagory:

LOR Machete (AR39)– still needs a few coats of finish, and a little polishing and an edge, and a sheath I suppose.

Australian Camp knife (NRJJ) – needs an edge, a lanyard and a sheath.

Kitchen slicer (AR38) – a stand or block

Small kitchen slicer (AR37) – a stand or block

Mini File Dagger (F2) – to have this handle ripped off and a nicer one put on. I was hoping that the Argentina Lignum Vitae would look prettier once it was polished up. The plan is to rip this off and replace it with ebony or one of the many red woods.

And in the handle-less category:

Cleaver – good progress, needs quenching and grinding and handle work, and…. But I
like the shape its in.

Large Dagger (AR32) – The handle is cut out, the scratches pretty much gone from the blade, needs the handle to be attached, shaped etc… an edge, a sheath.

Revised Henkel Santoku – reshaped, and requenched, and reshaped again due to the reaction to quenching. A much smaller knife now. And of course… it needs a handle again.

Puukku’s 1 and 2 – Quenched, still need grinding and handle work, and sheathes of course.

And thats all for now folks...

Progress for Saturday

2010-03-27T23:49:00.004-06:00

Howdy y’all,

So progress has been pretty good.

I’ve pretty much finished the knife part of the Australian Camp Knife. I’d show you, but it’s still classified.

I’ve pretty much finished the Bdoodles inspired kitchen knife.

The Lord of the Rings Machete is also about done.

Found a better bit to carve in the Hangedmandesigns logo too. Erica has the camera, so I apologize for the marginal camera phone pictures...

All of these need a few more coats of finish on the handles. Otherwise I would call them finished.

I have designs on two of my unfinished daggers for the weekend too. The little one will get a pretty simple handle, and the big one still needs some scratch removal. I may get to that one. We’ll see.

I showed a couple of friends the forge and let them bang on some metal today also.

I plan on firing up the forge tomorrow too. The creepy cleaver is coming along, and I’d like to bang on the two Puukko’s that I have going a bit too.

Although its nice to get things done in the shop, I miss Erica and Autumn. Even with all of he mantastic things I did today, its not the same as having my wonderful family here with me.

Mantastic events of the day: Shop time, Albuquerque Pork and Brew (7^th Annual), shop demonstrations for the boys (lathe and forge), Mixed Martial Arts (111^th Ultimate fighting championship at the bar.)

Pretty manspectacular really, but lacking in the wonderful wife category. Boo.

Hope to have more for you soon,

Adam

Mad as a March Hatter?

2010-03-25T21:01:00.001-06:00

Enjoyed the new 3d Alice in Wonderland, first theater movie in a really really long time.

Despite March madness, I managed to get some work done this weekend, which is always a surprise to me. I made a lot of progress on the Australian Camp Knife, and spent quite a bit of time on one of the most complex handles I have ever worked on. I’m pretty sure it will be gorgeous. Right now it looks like crap. The ugly duckling in copper and wood.

So what is it? It is my impression of what “I like blues, and cedar and copper” means. This will be on the larger of the two slicers (the smaller was posted last week). It has a slightly cleaner AR38 and Hangedman logo. The front section of the handle is Blue Mahoe, a Jamaican hardwood, with a small copper pin, then a segment of copper, with some turquoise inlay on both sides, then a two-toned Spanish aromatic cedar central section with a copper mosaic pin, another copper spacer, finished with another section of Blue Mahoe and a copper lined thong hole.

I also made a little progress on what I now think of as the “lord-of-the-rings machete” , a few years back I picked up an odd piece of weathered and very heavy driftwood, I still don’t know what it is. I cut it open and it has a very unusual grain, which you will see when I finish it. I think that the handle will be relatively simple, it will save my carbide drill bits from too much wear and tear. Hmmmm. I do think a little ebony would set it off nicely though. We’ll see.

I anticipate getting quite a bit done later this week, since Autumn and Erica are headed off to Savannah, GA to visit Grandma. On the down side, Autumn and Erica won’t be here with me.

We’ll see how much I actually get done.

A new kitchen steak/paring/boning knife for Monday

2010-03-15T18:07:00.002-06:00

Hi there knife people!

I’d hoped to finish more than one this weekend, but no luck. I did make a little progress on the Australian Camp Knife, but that is now classified until its done (NJJ – you’ll get your picture via e-mail).

Of the two kitchen carver/steak/boning knives, I finished the smaller one. Bdoodles, if you are watching, the one I imagine may be for you is a little bigger, and a little different, and the handle will be quite a bit different.

Anyway, here is AR37.

I also tried carving in the Hanged Man logo with a diamond bit on my dremel tool. It turned out OK, but isn’t as crisp as I’d like. I intend to commission a stamp for it, but can’t afford it yet. Some day… I carved in the AR37 also.

And here is a close- up of that.

Stats of AR37:

9 ½” overall, 4 ½” edge. Cru Forge V high vanadium carbon steel. Full tang. Steak/paring/boning kitchen knife. Handle is made of Bubinga, with a Holly pommel. The pins are brass, as is the thong hole.

It'll be posted on the Acrylicandsteel etsy shop soon..

Adam

Wrought Iron is cool!

2010-03-02T12:38:00.005-07:00

Wrought iron is an iron alloy with a very low carbon content, in comparison to steel, and has fibrous inclusions, known as slag. This is what gives it a "grain" resembling wood, which is visible when it is etched or bent to the point of failure. Wrought iron is tough, malleable, ductile and easily welded. Historically, it was known as "commercially pure iron", however it no longer qualifies because current standards for commercially pure iron require a carbon content of less than 0.008 wt%. (Wikipedia – Wrought Iron)

So, a few months ago, I ordered a piece of old 1800’s Lake Superior Grain Silo from http://www.usaknifemaker.com/store/ , just to see what Wrought Iron was all about. I like it. The impurities give an interesting, if subtle, visual effect. Not something to make a knife out of, but good for an accent piece…or some jewelry.

For Christmas, I made Erica a couple of necklaces, or pendants really, since I bought the chains on Etsy . Erica really likes skeleton keys, and I really love her, so, a key and a heart.

Here they are:

When I gave them to her, they were all shiny and polished. But since she likes the rough/antiqued look, I dunked them in Muriatic Acid for a while and they got all matte, and a shortly after that, a little rusty. She liked the effect, so that’s how they are now.

I ground them both with my belt grinder and dremel tool.

And progress was slow…

2010-02-23T13:46:00.004-07:00

It’s always amazing to me how much time real life takes away from hobbies. Who knew that having a real job and a 50 mile commute, a baby, needing to eat and sleeping would take so much time? Throw in some shuttling for Roller Derby and attending the odd practice and where is all my time to spend in the shop? Add some primitive equipment, and you have a recipe for a very slow production time. Nonetheless, I do finish things. . . Occasionally.
I’d love to blame writing blog posts, but obviously that doesn’t have much to do with it. I think it’s been over a week. Sorry. Not that I think you folks are just falling over yourselves to read this. I’m just not that interesting.

The high priority projects at the moment are… a couple more kitchen knives, this time medium sized carving/boning knives, and a camp/hunting knife. The kitchen knives are a lot farther along, since they have already been quenched and tempered. I’ll temper them once more after finishing all of the grinding. I think they look pretty good so far. I haven’t decided if I want to make them a matched set yet. But probably not.

Here they are:
The camp knife is almost ready for quenching. This is a custom piece and I am enjoying it quite a bit. I’ll get around to showing pictures of the progress eventually.

It currently looks like this:
Naturally, I’ve started more than that, and there are the other unfinished pieces that I’ve been whining about for a while. Some of them may look (and be) familiar:
Not that I really need any more wood, but I ordered some over ebay from “Handlethese”. It’s a nice shop with some interesting stuff. Importantly, they had staghorn sumac, which was requested as the handle material for the custom camp knife. But I also picked up a Cherry burl, an interesting piece of cocobolo, and some spalted elm.

Just so you don’t feel too sorry for me, my forge has decided to heat up recently, a little modification of the fire box, and some additional refractory wool, and all of a sudden – hotness!

On the downside, I managed to scorch my hair:

Kitchen Style

2010-02-14T16:32:00.004-07:00

TheKitchen...this is really the place that people use knives the most, so I've made some knives appropriate for the location.

My dad said that I should switch to entirely stainless steel, because its sooooo much easier to take care of. So I made one. But I made one with Crucibles Cru Forge V steel too. Which isn't stainless. Stainless is a pain to forge, and I like forging knives a lot better than just grinding them to shape.

I'm pretty happy with how both of them turned out. And hope you like them too. They'll probably go up on etsy for sale soon, after Erica takes better and more pictures of each one.

One of these days I plan on having a makers stamp made, but these are still stamped in my primitive style.

So, without further ado, let me introduce AR36 and SS3:

AR36 - Chefs Knife - 6 1/8" blade, 10 1/2" Overall, Hand Forged Cru Forge V steel chefs blade, full tang, Coccobolo with brass pin and tubes.

and SS3 - Japanese style kitchen Chopper - 4 1/2" Blade, 9 1/4" Overall, Ground CM 154 Stainless Steel blade, Black Palm bolster, Birdseye Maple handle, Brass Tubing accents/pins, full tang, leather thong.

Let me know what you think :)

A

Groundhogs Day Blues

2010-02-02T12:32:00.003-07:00

Happy Groundhog Day. Can’t say that I think about it that much, but I do enjoy the movie every few years. I guess that Phil saw his shadow, and winter is supposed to hang around. Doesn’t much bother me either way. Hmm. I sound like I’m in a funk. Very blah. Let’s see if I can do a little better….

Erica is home and healing quickly, which is awesome. Things are moving along at work and Friday is payday…that’s always good. Autumn appears to be cutting a few more teeth which is both good and bad. She has been a little fussy over the last few days. But she sure is cute!

I haven’t had much chance to work in the shop, but of course there are some projects on the bench. I haven’t been too inspired on jewelry lately, so it is all knives at the moment, and mostly kitchen knives at that. Not that there aren’t some older unfinished projects, the same kukri and two daggers that have been there for a long time, but back to the kitchen knives. I’ve got a chef’s knife, a Japanese style chopper, and two carving/steak knives going right now. The first two are about ready for handles to be put on. The second two need some more forging and grinding.

This is what those two look like after the first forging and first grinding session.

I’ll probably draw out the blades just a touch more, and the handles need some drawing and shaping. Hopefully I’ll get to that sometime soon. Need more charcoal for the forge first though. I ran out again. Oh, and I need time, ran out of that again too…

Have a merry, happy, Groundhogs day!

And I’ll try to do better J

I've been a little lax - new knives

2010-01-28T20:29:00.004-07:00

The orignial plan was that each time I finished a new knife I would post a picture and the stats here. I've been lax.

I managed to post the stats for the LS1 kitchen knife in December, but didn't post good pictures of the two custom letter openers that I made for BDoodles. And didn't write down the dimensions so I can't post them.

Materials for letter opener BDoodles 1: Deer antler blade, Ebony and Copper Bolster, Deer antler handle (provided by the customer) engraved L.T. on crown of handle.

Materials for letter opener BDoodles 2: hammered Sterling silver blade, ebony and nickle silver bolster, deer antler handle (provided by customer), engraved S.G.

After those, I finished up my first knife from an old file and posted some pictures, but again forgot to get the dimensions but at least I mentioned the materials, but again:

F1: Given to my dad for Christmas, Blade: File steel, Guard: Copper, Handle: Kingwood, with mosaic pin.

Then, I finished up three more:
AR33: Scapel: 1 3/4" O1 steel blade, 6 3/8" overall, Ebony handle, mosaic pin, brass lined thong hole.

AR34: Drop point hunter: 4 3/8" 1095 high carbon steel blade, 9 3/4" overall, wrought iron (1800's grain silo) guard and pommel, olivewood handle, brass pins, and an onyx bead to cap off the pommel. I did make a sheath for this one too.

And finally (for now) I forgot to post the stats for the kitchen chopper, which I've talked about a lot...

AR35: Custom Kitchen Chopper: Blade: 7 5/8" 1084fg High carbon plus vanadium blade. Coccobolo handle with brass tubing accents. And just in case you didn't see it before, here it is again.

That should have me caught up until I finish the next set....

A new world order…er OK a new order…not the music group either

2010-01-22T14:41:00.004-07:00

Yesterday it snowed in the morning at work in Laguna. And due to that weather we got the day off. Of course, by the time I was 30 miles from work there was no snow and the road was dry. I felt kind of guilty, but free time off is free time off. So I went home.

Here’s a pic of the old shop that is across the street from my office.

With a whole afternoon in front of me, I picked up some tools from Lowes (I just burned out my old Rotozip, and needed a few other odds and ends), and went home to play in the shop.

But first a little lunch, and part of a Movie. A few years back I was an extra in the movie Gamer which came out late last year and made it to DVD pretty quickly. So I started watching that. I can’t recommend it, especially because you can’t identify me in the scene that I am in J But I felt that I needed to find out if I had actually managed face time. Nope.

I wasn't filmed as a guard like in this picture - but as a prisoner, I was a little speck in white trotting along in a line of others specks in white.

Then I found out that I have a new custom order for a good kitchen meat knife, we’ll call it a carver/slicer for now. Always exciting to have a new project! So I took a break from the movie to play in the shop.

I cut a strip of my CruV steel in half lengthwise – the customer doesn’t want the blade to be too wide – with my new rotozip, and fired up the forge. After an hour or two of hammering away I have two rough knives, that still need a lot of work, but now I have a vision at least. They were still cooling or I’d have put up a picture. Pretty ugly right now, so you aren’t missing much. They’ll get better.

Then, because I was a little tired from pretty much constant hammering, I moved to the belt sander and worked on my other kitchen knives (a chef’s and a Japanese style chopper) for a little while. Then headed back into the house to finish my movie, and do some hand sanding of those pieces as well.

Two daggers (a little one and a big one) are still languishing away unfinished. Someday…I promise.

That reminds me, I worked on another partially finished blade made of a file, got it to quenching stage, and then quenched it too fast. CRACK! Ooops. I thought I might be able to salvage part of it, but there was another crack. Oh well.

So the exciting thing is the new order! And that the kitchen chopper should go out in the mail to its new owner with its vegetable but not skin sharp blade tomorrow. Yay custom orders!

Adam

Reading material

2010-01-19T15:27:00.002-07:00

I just finished reading the “Manual of the Baratero: The Art of Handling the Navaja, the Knife, and the Scissors of the Gypsies”, translated by James Loriega and thought that it was relevant enough to write about and post to this blog.

A few months ago while looking through Blade magazine I saw a Navaja style knife, I’d seen them before, but couldn’t remember what was special about them. So I looked them up and found that they are Spanish folding knives that have a peculiar locking mechanism that has teeth that make a ratcheting noise when it opens. In searching for pictures of this mechanism I found Loriega’s book on handling the Navaja, and thought I would give it a try.

I was not too surprised, based on reviews, that there wasn’t a whole lot of technical information about how to fight with a knife, and found the socio-political commentary very interesting. I can’t say that I really gained a lot of insight into the fighting style either, or the knife itself, although there are some basic dimensions that I would probably throw out immediately if I made one. I still need to figure out the locking mechanism, although admittedly I think I have a pretty good idea of how it works at this point.

Mostly this appears to be a book simultaneously trying to remain politically correct while sharing the virtues and flaws of the gambling enforcer, in an era where death from duels and knife fights appear to have happened with much greater regularity than they do today.

I do wish that they had talked a little more about fighting with the Gypsy scissors, but mostly there was a little commentary on gypsies and then - use the same techniques as for the Navaja.

The translator clearly has a much better grasp of martial arts of all sorts, and blade fighting in particular than I ever will. And I'm pretty sure that you can learn more about spanish bladework in some of his other books. Just not this translation.

Finally, the book is actually very brief, as the second half is the original Spanish version.

An excellent weekend for knives

2010-01-11T10:17:00.002-07:00

It was a good knife weekend, I have three that I am almost ready to show and I’ve got one poor quality phone pic to post a little further down in this blog.

The hunting knife with olivewood handle that I managed to get rusty on the trip to Michigan is back in shape, and almost ready for pictures. I’ll probably finish its sheath first though – it is together, just needs to be oiled to be done. Maybe one more coat of finish on the handle too, and a few final passes with some 1500 and 2000 grit sandpaper on the blade. And final sharpening.

The Scalpel is almost done too. Again it needs one more coat of finish, and final sharpening. It is ebony with a mosaic pin. Looks pretty.

I hope to be able to take pictures on Thursday for both of them, and then post either Thursday night or Friday.

The kitchen chopper needs an edge, and I need to stamp it, but otherwise is finished! It doesn’t look quite like the original, but that’s ok I think, it was made in the spirit of the original. Hopefully the future owner will like it as much or better.

Heres the original:

And here is my rendition:

Another interesting aspect of this one is the requested edge, “Sharp enough to cut vegetables, but not skin”. In my opinion as a cook, the sharper the knife the better, it means less force needed to cut anything in particular, and the less force you use, the less likely to lose control of the knife. I’ll do my best to comply though, and will try to make it easy to put a real edge on if that is ever desired.

I’ve also got a couple more kitchen knives that are getting closer to completion. One stainless, and one with my new Cru-forge V steel, they are still a little ways off though.

Laters!

2010

2010-01-06T12:42:00.005-07:00

A new decade.

After a brief trip to Michigan, we are back home in Albuquerque, and back to work.

Michigan was unexpectedly sunny, with two days of sun. In Michigan that means COLD, I'm not sure it made 15 degrees either day. We had a little snow, but nothing difficult to handle.

I finished and gave my dad the paring knife that I had been working on. It was my first effort using an old file to turn into a knife, and I think it turned out pretty well. I made the handle out of kingwood, and pinned it with a mosaic pin that I got from Jantz Knifemakers supply.

The olive handled hunting knife that I was working on is done except for the sheath, and a few rust pits that I need to work out. Never wrap a knife in a cloth with something that is damp. Its amazing how fast things rust under those conditions.

The custom kitchen chopper is almost done too. Here is a bad cell phone picture. It obviously still needs a handle.

Happy New Year everyone!

Knives - a discussion

2009-12-28T16:32:00.003-07:00

Some people are afraid of knives...

There are a lot of misconceptions about knives and types of knives. There are daggers, dirks, hunting knives, folding knives, fighting knives, boot knives, buckle knives, switchblades, machetes, pruning knives, steak knives, scalpels, letter openers, box cutters and the list goes on and on. Then there are the regionally specific names: balisong, jambiya, navaja, bowie, kukri, parang, bolo, ulu, athame, etc… Obviously there are countless names for them, some of which mean specific things, some which don’t. This has resulted in many legal battles trying to define which ones are illegal to carry under certain circumstances, and which aren’t. These battles are still being fought and refought, and overturned and reviewed and revised. The reality is that a knife is any cutting edge or blade, handheld or otherwise, with or without a handle, they have been around for a couple MILLION years. They are tools, and have a multitude of uses. Even knives that are named for a specific purpose – such as a hunting knife, or chef’s knife can be used for so much more. Some shapes might be more efficient at a particular task, but you can use almost any type of knife to carry out the task of any other. Is a paring knife less dangerous than a switchblade? Odds are the paring knife is sharper, sturdier, and easier to handle. The infamous Bowie knife, which is now thought of as a fighting knife, was originally a large butcher knife, and can still be used as such.

The things that distinguish one knife from another are shape, size and materials. Some shapes are better for pruning plants for example, while others for opening boxes, chip carving, slicing cheese, or carving a turkey. Large knives are better for large tasks (cutting through the jungle), small knives for delicate or small tasks (surgery). Folding knives are better for keeping in your pocket (switchblades are not recommended for pockets), while straight knives fit in sheaths or cases or blocks. Knives have been made from bone, stone, bronze, steel and anything else that can hold an edge, or even if it doesn’t hold an edge – some uses don’t need it, like letter openers.

Some knives will never be used to cut a single thing – art knives, for example, frequently sit in a case and are primarily meant to be looked at. Even if they are designed and constructed of the best materials, the owner may choose never to use it. Other knives will be used daily for one purpose or many, again depending on the owner.

As a knife maker, I make knives because I enjoy it, not because I expect my knives to be used a certain way. If I call something a fighter style knife, it’s because it looks like that style to me, not that it will be used to fight with. A person who will never pick up a bow or rifle may still enjoy the look and utility of a hunting knife, but use it for camping chores, or opening boxes, or the mail, or to sit on the shelf and look pretty.

Knives are tools, don’t judge them on a name, don’t blame them for how they are used. If you disagree with the user, talk to the user, don’t ban the knife.

Custom orders are cool!

2009-12-17T08:44:00.001-07:00

In my last post I showed you the nice kitchen knife with tulipwood handle that I had just finished. It sold already! Pretty exciting! On top of that I have had a couple of custom orders. Two of antler handled letter openers, and then a friend of mine asked me to reproduce a knife that his mom loves. The letter openers are finished and in the hands of their new owner. You can see them over at acrylicandsteel. The custom kitchen chopper – quite an unusual design- is still in the getting hammered on stage, so no pictures yet.

I think I mentioned a couple of posts ago that I had ordered some metal. Well, it all arrived. I thought that I had ordered CPM 154 but it turns out I just ordered ordinary CM154. What’s the difference? The P stands for Powdered – so it is put together with powdered metal with a very even grain structure. The difference to me though is that when I heated it up and hit the first piece the un-powdered version broke in half, while I had no trouble hammering and forming the CPM. Let that be a lesson to me. That was an expensive lesson to learn.

The wrought iron that I picked up (from an 1800’s grain tower in Lake Superior) is really cool. It will be featured in a hunting knife that is almost done.

OK, it WAS almost done. Now it has moved back a couple phases. It was pretty much finished, and I really just didn’t like the way that it had turned out. It didn’t really look like one of my knives, too boxy, not organic enough. So I changed it, and now it has a little bit of finish work to go again. Of course I didn’t take a picture of it before I changed it.

I’ve also almost finished a paring knife made from an old file. It still needs a little work on the handle.

Someday, I’ll remember to attach pictures to everything. But not today.

New Kitchen Knife LS1

2009-12-03T07:07:00.004-07:00

I finally finished up the kitchen knife that I was working on. It looks a little different than I planned at the beginning, but that is the way it goes some times. So without further ado...introducing LS1, my first Santuku inspired slicer/carver.

Remember, if you are interested in what it looked like before, go to the Acrylicandsteel blog

If you are into recycled goods, the steel for this came from the leaf-spring of an old jeep or dodge truck. It is most likely 1086 or 1095 steel, similar to what I've used on past knives.

Erica gave me the wood for the handle last year, it is Tulipwood, and very pretty in my opinion. The Corby rivets are brass.

The whole thing is about 12 1/2 inches long with a blade of 5 1/4 inches.

I think it turned out pretty well.

Enjoy.

Pictures from the lathe

2009-11-30T12:32:00.007-07:00

Hmmm... This post was supposed to go to Acrylic and Steel, and the one there was supposed to go to Hangedman....oh well.

I did promise some pictures from my garage projects, so I’ll give you some of the lathe projects.

If you are more interested in the knives, check out the acrylicandsteel page.

The first project after getting the lathe was to build Autumn a table. So I turned a few 2x2’s into legs. Each one is different.

Then I grabbed a small log of Russian olive and started a vase. I haven’t managed to clean out the inside yet due to some wobble. I think I know how to deal with that now, so I’ll have to throw it back on and hollow it out one of these days. Here it is with its base still attached and a layer of finish on it, just to see how it will look later.

I’ve played with a few other pieces, a 4x4 and some purpleheart as mentioned earlier, but the most fun has been this salt cedar root. Here are a couple phases – naturally I don’t have a good before picture. Sorry.

Prior to hollowing

Post hollowing

Here it is with some finish (Mosler Oil/Wax). It’s a pretty and unique little bowl. Still needs the bottom to be finished up, and the base removed, but that shouldn’t take too long.

Oh yes, I did mention that I had cleaned up an old Boy Scout knife from Cousin Chuck – again didn’t take pictures first – someday I’ll learn. But this is how it turned out. I had to rebuild the sheath, but I think that I captured the character, and I reused the front piece to retain the original look and leatherworking. And I didn’t really change anything about the knife – just polished it up, and took away most of the rust, and sharpened it up again. Hopefully the original maker (or manufacturer) isn’t offended.

AR7 Handle revision and Elk Hunt

2009-11-25T13:22:00.005-07:00

Earlier this year I decided that it was time to fix the handle on an earlier knife, AR7. I just wasn't very happy with the way the whole thing went together, and it didn't feel right in my hand. So, despite the effort that had gone into it, I chiseled off the handle, and knocked off the guard.

After some thought, some time, and some more thought I decided to regrind the blade. After several iterations, I ended up with the current shape, which I like a lot better. I also shaped a new, simpler guard. I really liked the old guard, but it was a pain to try to fit a handle around.

I decided to go with redwood burl from northern California for the new handle, it is a pleasure to work with and finishes very well. The new handle feels much better in the hand, is buttery smooth, and gorgeous. I added a corby-rivet in addition to the epoxy to hold the handle on securely. Unfortunately I ground away a little to much of the rivet on one side so the center is visible. C'est la vie. Overall I was very pleased how it turned out.

After finishing it, and resharpening it, I lent it to my coworker Frank to take with him on his cow elk hunt. Above is a picture of the knife on the fresh kill. Looks good so far. I hope to hear good reports on its edge holding and performance in skinning an elk.

Here is the old blade and handle. It was perhaps more exotic, with its tiger-eye and two tone wood, blued blade, and curved guard, but not nearly a cohesive as the revised model.

Reduced prices on some of my work

2009-11-23T13:26:00.002-07:00

Hi folks,

No, haven't managed to get the pictures up yet for the pieces that I commented on recently. And more are on the way (pieces, not necessarily pictures); but in the meantime I did reduce prices on most of the knives over at acrylicandsteel.etsy.com by at least 10%, and post a blog over at acrylicandsteel.blogspot.com, so go check it out, and get someone a nice Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa/Birthday/I love you present :)

Revisions and progress

2009-11-12T12:56:00.002-07:00

Sorely out of practice, I at least have my forge up and running again, and have several pieces nearly ready to have handles put on. Naturally, I don't have pictures to put up for you yet. I had some issues with quenching this time around, with more warping than I am used to, but despite all that, I think the products will be interesting.

I've also just finished a revision of AR7, which I was never really happy with. The new version is less complex but feels better in the hand, is put together a little better, and is (in my opinion) prettier too. I reshaped the blade some, and replaced the handle - which was very narrow, with a piece of redwood burl. I'll post pictures of that soon.

Thirdly, I bought a small lathe. Not quite sure how I will use it in terms of knife making, but hopefully I will manage to post some bowls and vases before too long. And maybe a walking stick or two, if I ever get around to trying that.

Anyway, I hope to have some new pictures up here and on Acrylicandsteel sometime soon.

Acrylic and Steel

2009-02-26T18:12:00.002-07:00

Hi Folks, if you like what you see here, check out the etsy store that my wife and I have put together. Some of these knives and jewelery pieces are for sale there, as well as her artwork and crafts. Visit us at: www.acrylicandsteel.etsy.com

Knives AR 22-23

2009-02-24T17:57:00.000-07:00

AR22 - 7 ¾” overall, 3 5/8” blade. Blade: 1095 high carbon steel, small utility knife. Hidden tang. Water buffalo horn guard. Myrtlewood handle, mild steel pins.

AR23 - 7 ¼” overall, 3 1/8” blade. Blade: 1095 high carbon steel, small utility knife. Hidden tang. Deer antler bolster. Striped Ebony handle, mild steel pins. 2 pictures.

A letter opener, DSK4, knives AR20-21

2009-02-24T17:47:00.000-07:00

Letter Opener 6 – 9” overall, 5” blade. Blade: Copper. Full tang. Guard: Holly with mild steel pins. Handle: Cholla skeleton w/black inlace. Pommel: Holly with mild steel pins.

DSK4 – 8 ¾” overall, 3 3/8” blade. Blade: High speed steel from diamond saw blade, small chefs knife. Hidden Tang. No guard. Handle: Mexican Ebony. Nickel silver corby rivet and steel pin. Red inlace filler.

AR20 - 6 ¾” overall, 2 5/8” blade. Blade: 1095 high carbon steel, mini-skinner. Full tang. Bronze guard. Banksia pod handle with black inlace, brass pin.

AR21 - 8 ½” overall, 4 ¾” blade. Blade: 1095 high carbon steel, mini-chefs knife. Full tang. Brass guard. Lignum Vitae handle, with brass tubes and pin.

Knives 17-19

2009-02-24T12:35:00.000-07:00

AR17 – 10 5/16” overall, 5 3/8” blade. Blade O1 steel, hidden tang. Guard: Nickel-silver. Handle: Snakewood, Nickle-silver corby rivet. Finished with Teak oil.

AR18 – 8” overall, 3 ½” blade. Blade 1095 steel, full tang. No Guard. Handle: Lignum vitae, marble, mild steel pins. Finished with Teak oil.

AR19 – 13 ¾” overall, 8” blade. Blade 1095 steel. Hidden through tang. No Guard. Handle: Waterbuffalo horn, Stag antler. Pommel: Water Buffalo horn.

Knives 13-16

2009-02-24T12:32:00.000-07:00

AR13 – 11 ½” overall, 6 ¼” blade. Blade: 1095 steel, fighter, hidden tang. Mild steel guard. Handle:Vulcanized spacer, mild steel, black and white ebony, Ancient Kauri. Mild steel pins. Finished with clear gloss polyurethane. Pommel: Vulcanized spacer, mild steel, black and white ebony.

AR 14 –sold- 3 5/8” overall, 1 5/8” blade. Blade: O1 steel, hidden tang. No guard. Handle: Desert Ironwood, Brass Corby rivet and pin. No pommel.

AR 15 – 9 1/8” overall, 3 3/4” blade. Blade: 1095 steel, exaggerated scimitar, hidden tang. Guard: Agatized Fossil. Handle: Spalted Curly Maple, Vulcanized spacer, Blue Mahoe, Brass Corby rivets. Finished with clear gloss polyurethane.No pommel.

AR16 –11 ¼” overall, 5 ½” blade. Blade 1095 steel, tanto style, hidden, through tang. Guard: Ground bronze. Handle: Black Palm, brass corby rivet. Finished with clear gloss polyurethane. Pommel: Ground Bronze, Brass eyelet, bronze dust and epoxy, solder.

Knives 9-12

2009-02-24T12:28:00.000-07:00

AR 9 - 9 ¾” overall, 4 7/8” blade. Blade 1095 steel, hidden tang, hybrid wharncliffe-drop point hunter. Guard: Copper. Handle: Figured bubinga, stacked leather, dyed epoxy.

Sheath: 8oz folded leather, glued and sewn. Dyed saddle tan. Copper rivets.

AR 10 – made for Amy Raymond. 12 3/16” overall, 6 7/8” blade. Blade: O1 7/16” round stock, exposed tang, ritual knife-scimitar blade. Guard: Sterling Silver. Handle: Myrtlewood with Lapis Lazuli insets. Pommel: O1 with Lapis Lazuli.

Case- Holly sided box with Blue Mahoe top and bottom, Myrtlewood accents. Copper pins. Black silk lining. Finished with Teak oil. Gloss polyurethane coat.

AR 11 – 12 3/8” overall, 7 1/8” blade. Blade: 1095 steel, double edged dagger, hidden tang. Guard: Ebony and coccobollo. Handle: Birds eye maple and ebony. Finished with teak oil.

Sheath: 8oz folded leather, glued and sewn. Dyed saddle tan. Copper rivets.

AR12 – 7” overall, 2 7/8” blade. Blade: 1095 steel, utility knife, exposed tang. Guard: Brass. Handle: Coccobolo, finished with teak oil.

Sheath: 8oz. folded leather, glued and sewn. Dyed black. Copper rivets.

Knives 5-8

2009-02-24T12:24:00.001-07:00

AR5 – 10 ¼” overall, 4 ¾” blade. Blade: 1095 High-carbon steel. Scimitar point hunter. Hidden tang. Hand filed work on spine. Handle: Ebony and steel spacers, Lignum Vitae scales around ebony core. Guard: hand filed design in high carbon steel. Stainless Corby rivet holding handle together. Blade and handle finished to 600 grit, plus 0000 steel wool., blade polished a little more than usual. Handle sealed with 3 coats min-wax rub-on polyurethane, with steel wool in between.

Blade refinished with buffing wheel.

Original Handle removed, replaced with: ebony, cow bone, ebony bolster, cholla cactus skeleton, filled with Inlace epoxy resin (black). Ebony pommel with bone plug.

Sheath – Hand stitched 3oz leather at tip and top, edges seared, treated with neatsfoot oil. Middle layer dyed bison leather, suede-side out. Interior – red oak.

AR6 - 8” overall, 4 ¼” blade. Blade 1095 Steel, drop point hunter, hidden tang. Guard: Brass, leather, brass. Handle: Picasso marble scales with laced leather strap (dyed saddle leather brown).

Sheath: Wood core, 5oz leather outer, stitched on both edges, dyed saddle leather brown, Picasso marble teardrop inlay.

AR7 – 11 3/8” overall, 6” blade. Blade 1095 steel. Hidden tang. Guard: shaped mild steel. Handle: Padauk, applewood, inlace, tigereye. Pommel: Paduak, tigereye. Revised and reshaped:

New AR7 (below)- A bit shorter overall, dimensions to come. Revised shape. Revised guard. New handle of redwood burl.

Sheath, 8oz. folded leather, copper rivets, waxed cotton saddlestitch.

New Sheath, 8oz folded leather, steel rivets, natural sinew stitching. Leather dyed prairie tan.

AR8 – 11” overall, 5 ¾” blade. Blade 1095 steel, sub-hilt fighter, hidden tang. Guard: Gibeon meteorite, filed copper with Inlace, ebony with amber inlay in finger grove, copper. Handle: lignum vitae scales with Nickel silver corby rivet. Pommel: copper, ebony, copper, meteorite, with amber inlay.

Sheath: 8oz folded leather, glued. Sewn leather straps for horizontal hang on belt.

My Third Folder...

2008-10-20T12:51:00.004-06:00

Forgot my razor when I was travelling a month or so ago, so I used the last folder I made. It worked surprisingly well. Not my closest shave ever, but it did the job.

This isn't that one though. I found another folder blade that I had forged a while back. Decided that I should work on it and try to do a nice job. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

F3 - 8” open, 3 ¼” blade, 4 5/8” closed. Blade: 1095 high carbon steel, liner lock folder. Steel pins and liners. Bronze bushings on main pivot. Big Leaf maple Burl scales. Filework and copper accents on spine.

Next on the agenda is redoing the handle of AR7 which I never liked the feel of. We'll see how that goes...

My Second Folding knife

2008-08-26T17:05:00.003-06:00

Finally finished a second folder, and personally, I think that lock-backs are a pain.

F2 - 5 7/8” open, 3 7/8” closed. Blade: 154cm stainless steel, lock back folder. Steel pins and liners. Bronze bushing on main pivot. Nickle silver thong hole. Spalted Mulberry scales.

A new Dagger and a couple of bearings

2008-08-11T12:51:00.004-06:00

Good Morning - well, for those of us currently on the west coast.
For your viewing pleasure today we have: A new dagger, and a couple more bearing pendants on different necklaces. Hmm, that would be IF i remembered to take those pictures...
Anyway - now I've taken the pics.

SS2 – unavailable. 10 ¾” overall, 4 15/16” blade. Blade: 154cm stainless steel, rondel dagger. Hidden tang. Brass and Holly Guard and Pommel. Lacewood and Leopardwood. Leather sheath. 8/1/08.

The bearing pendants of the day are a carnelian centerpiece with the bearing ground down to show the actual bearings on magnetic wire, and a lapiz and brass on a solid choker.

The lapiz still needs a little polishing.

I'm working on another folding knife too, but I'm not sure if I will get that done before I head off to Texas on Wednesday.

Sculpture

2008-07-06T11:04:00.003-06:00

And since I am busy posting all kinds of old projects - here are some sculptural pieces.
1. Dragon wall hanging- Carved cherry with purpleheart eye.
2. Penguins - Carved orange alabaster.
3. Skull - Variegated Rhyolite - damn that stuff was hard, found it in a bin labled rainbow alabaster, expected it to be soft.
4. Rockfish - just a little piece of rock that I found and spoke to me.

A couple more necklaces

2008-07-06T11:00:00.002-06:00

Coyote Necklace: Sterling and mexican ebony centerpiece, freshwater pearl and glass beadwork.
Meteorite Necklace: Gibeon meteorite, copper and garnet centerpiece, sterling triple strand necklace with sterling spacers.

New and Old Jewelry

2008-07-06T10:56:00.003-06:00

Since I haven't actually published any of my jewelry pieces on this blog, I thought it would be a fine time to do so.

1: Amber and sterling rollerskate bearing pendant.
2: Turquise and copper rollerskate bearing pendant.
3: Sterling and emerald pendant
4. Sterling and ironwood pendant

Wood Turnings

2008-07-06T10:49:00.004-06:00

A couple months ago, when I was staying with my dad in Ann Arbor, I had the opportunity to play with his wood lathe. Here are a couple of pieces that I made, and one that I made with him.

The first - with the easter egg candy, is cherry, and dad and I made it together; the second I made from Mulberry; the third-with more candy, it was easter time - is aromatic cedar; and the forth is made from maple burl.

I think they turned out pretty well (hah hah...).

Summer Solstice Knives

2008-06-22T13:14:00.002-06:00

Hi folks, here is the newest installment of knives.

SV1 - 8 ½” overall, 4 ¼” blade. Blade: Sandvik 13C26 steel, Warncliff style. Unforged. Hidden tang. Steel and cow bone guard. Redwood burl handle. No pommel. Gloss poly finish. 6/21/08

AR28 – Sold! - 8 7/8”overall,4 1/8” blade. Blade: O1 tool steel, Utility knife. Hidden tang. Copper and leather guard. Desert ironwood and holly handle. No pommel. Gloss polyurethane finish. 6/22/08

AR29 –10 3/8”overall,5 ¼” blade. Blade:1095 steel, Camp knife. Hidden tang. Bronze guard.Ebony and figured maple handle, brass pin and lanyard hole. No pommel. Gloss polyurethane finish. 6/22/08

AR30 –10 ½”overall, 5 1/16” blade. Blade:O1 tool steel. Full tang. Brass Guard and pins. Mexican ebony and ancient kauri handle. No pommel. Gloss polyurethane finish. 6/22/08

AR31 – 6 5/8”overall,2 7/8” blade. Blade: Thunderforged Damascus, drop point hunter. Hidden tang. Mild steel guard and corby rivets. Vulcanized spacer. Striped ebony handle. No pommel. Teak oil finish. 6/22/08

Didn't expect to finish this one this week

2008-02-19T09:26:00.004-07:00

Well, I didn't think that I was going to finish any more knives before the move, but then as I was cleaning out the shop I saw this one, which I cut the pieces for the handle a long time ago, but never finished, so I thought...this one won't take long at all, and it didn't. No current plans to do any more before we head off to parts unknown, but one can never be sure. The lighting is a little odd on the picture, but I'm not a professional.
Specs:
Letter Opener 7. 8 3/8” overall, 4 3/8” blade. Blade: Beaten Copper. Full tang. Bolster and Pommel: Lapis Lazuli. Handle: Curly Poplar. Steel pins, Brass Corby Fastener.

Revised handle for an older knife

2008-02-19T09:23:00.003-07:00

This knife was one of my first (AR3) and has been used a bit. The blade seems to still be in great shape, which is encouraging. I was never happy with the handle though, so I borrowed it back in order to revise it. I'm pretty happy with the result.
The new specs for this one are: 10 3/8” overall, 4 5/8”blade. Holly with Coccobolo cross inlay, vulcanized black paper and copper spacer. Brass pins.

New knives for the new year

2008-02-19T09:14:00.006-07:00

So here's the new knives as of mid-february. 26 and 27 are gifts now you you are out of luck there, as for 24 and 25, I still haven't figured out pricing, so make an offer if you are interested.

AR24 – 6 ¼”overall, 3” blade. Blade: O1 tool steel, blacksmith knife. Heat colored twisted steel handle. 2/11/08

AR25 – 6 ¼” overall, 2 ½” blade. Blade: 1095 high carbon steel, small utility knife. Full tang. Redheart and pine burl handle, leather spacer. Brass Pins. Gloss polyurethane finish. 2/12/08

AR26 – Winds of Change. 8 ¾” overall, 4 ¼” blade. Blade: 1095 high carbon steel, drop point hunter. Hidden tang. Engraved copper bolster. Spalted curly maple and Russian Olive handle. Brass pin. 2/12/08

AR27 – 9 ½”overall, 4 ¾” blade. Blade: O1 tool steel, light scimitar curve. Hidden tang. Bloodwood and copper bolster. Cholla and tuscan red inlace handle. Bloodwood and Copper pommel with inlaid carnelian bead. 2/17/08

Christmas Knives

2008-01-29T21:31:00.000-07:00

Howdy folks, I've been a little lax about posting lately, so I thought that I would put in an update.
So, here is the folder that I made for my grandpa. It was my first one, and most firsts are a bit of a pain. It was also my first damascus knife. You should be able to see a little bit of the damascus pattern in the blade on in the half open picture. I did some filework on the spine and blued everything. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. The specs are:

F1 – unavailable. 7” open, 4 1/8” closed. Blade: Thunderforged Damascus Twist. Liner lock drop point folder. Blued steel liners. Heat blued, hand-filed spine. Stainless screws. Madrone burl scales.

I also made a different kitchen knife for my mom. I decided that she didn't want to worry about tarnishing from cutting acidic foods, so I bought a piece of 154CM stainless and went to work. She tells me that it works very well and is staying sharp and clean. I made a nice block to hold it out of some Purple heart wood, but havn't put in a picture of that, since I don't think it is very exciting.
The specs for this one are:

SS1 – unavailable. 8 ½” overall, 4 ¾” blade. Blade: 154CM stainless steel, mini-chefs knife. Full tang. No guard. Curly maple handle, with mild steel pins. 12/16/2007. Purple heart knife block.

So, two firsts for christmas, my first Stainless steel, and my first folder. Go me. Now I am on temporary hiatus while the job search process goes on, but I do have lots of knew blades that are waiting for handles. I just have to get around to putting them all together.

Letter Openers 1-5

2007-11-26T12:46:00.003-07:00

Letter opener 1 – Sold. 8” overall, 4 1/8” blade. Blade: Copper, hidden through tang. Handle salt cedar center dovetailed with desert ironwood. No stamp.

Letter Opener 2 – Sold. 9 1/4” overall, 4 3/4” blade. Blade, hammered copper, exposed tang. Guard: Waterbuffalo horn. Handle: Spalted Cottonwood with copper inserts, turquoise pin accent. No pommel.

Letter Opener 3 - 10” overall, 5” blade. Blade: Sterling Silver. Hidden Tang. No Guard. Handle: Ebony, Carolina Poplar, Ebony, mild steel pins.

Letter Opener 4 - 10” overall, 4 ½” blade. Blade copper. Full tang. No guard. Handle: Coccobolo, ebony, mild steel pins. Pommel: Beaten copper.

Letter Opener 5 - Sold!- 10 3/8” overall, 5 ¾” blade. Blade Copper. Hidden through tang. Guard: Shaped copper. Handle: Mexican ebony, Cottonwood. Pommel: Copper.

Diamond Saw Knives 1-3

2007-11-26T12:44:00.002-07:00

DSK1 - 8 ¼” overall, 3 ¾” blade. Blade high speed steel from diamond saw blade. Hidden tang. Guard: brass. Handle: Curly maple, brass pins.

DSK2 - 6 7/8” overall, 2 ¾” blade. Blade: High speed steel from diamond saw blade. Hidden tang. Guard: Brass. Handle: Apricot, brass pins.

DSK3 - 8” overall, 3 3/8” blade. Blade: High speed steel from diamond saw blade. Hidden tang. Brass bolster. Handle: Manzanita, Holly.

Bandsaw Knives 1-2 and Axe1

2007-11-26T12:41:00.002-07:00

Band-saw Knife 1 - 7 ½” overall, 3 ½” blade. Blade: .05” thick 15n20, drop point hunter, exposed tang. No guard. Handle: Lignum Vitae, Salt Cedar, Black epoxy. Finished with teak oil and gloss polyurethane. No stamp - unforged

Band-saw Knife 2 - 7 5/8” overall, 3 ¼” blade. Blade .05” thick 15n20, exposed tang. Guard: Ground brass. Handle: Honduran Rosewood finished with teak oil, Brass pin. No pommel. No stamp – unforged.

ARAXE1 –17 ¾” overall, head 5 3/8”. Head, originally a store-bought hatchet, steel unknown. Reshaped to current form. Handle: carved figured bubinga. Copper holding pin.

Knives 1-4

2007-11-26T12:18:00.001-07:00

AR1 – Given to Gordan Peckham belatedly for his 80^th Birthday (May 3, 2006) . Blade: 1095 High-carbon steel. Drop point hunter style, hidden tang. Handle material: Madrone Burl, finished with Tung oil. Guard: forged mild steel. Pins: Peened mild steel. Finished to 400 grit (blade and handle), plus 0000 steel wool.

Sheath – 8mm folded leather, hand sewn with waxed cotton thread. Texture from ball peen hammer. Treated with beeswax and oil.

AR2 – Given to John and Nan Morningstar (May 28, 2006). Blade: 1095 High-carbon steel. Chefs knife, hidden tang. Handle material: Mequite, finished with Tung oil and satin polyurethane. No Guard. Pins: Peened mild steel. Finished to 400 grit (blade and handle), plus 0000 steel wool.

Sheath – Cherry with steel pin and waxed cotton thread.

AR3 – Designed for David Ross. Blade: 1095 High-carbon steel. Drop point hunter. Hidden tang. Handle: Coccobolo, with hammered copper cross and copper nails. Pin holes filled with Walnut Wood filler mixed with Ebony dust, covered with copper nails – filed and unfiled. Guard: Hammered re-bar, ground into final shape. Handle cracked open at one point, seam visible, epoxied back together.

Sheath – 8oz folded leather. Textured leather, hand sewn with waxed cotton thread. Treated with wax and oil.

AR4 – Designed for Erika Taylor. Blade: 1095 High-carbon steel. Drop point hunter. Hidden tang. Handle: Bloodwood with Ebony insert, finished with tung oil. Guard: Hot shaped low carbon steel, filed into final shape. Blade and handle finished to 600 grit, plus 0000 steel wool.

Display sheath. Carved Padauk backing with brushed brass holders, ebony spacer. Removable ebony edge guard. All finished to 220 grit, plus 0000 steel wool, and tung oil.

Welcome to Hanged Man Designs

2007-11-02T09:12:00.001-06:00

Good morning. I am still in the process of building this page, so don't be too surprised by changes. I will be posting pictures of everything pretty soon, but not this morning. The pictures are currently posted at http://www.myspace.com/ringia but since you have to be a member to view pictures, it was recommended that I move them to someplace new.

I guess you can consider this page to be ~UNDER CONSTRUCTION~ if you like. I will try to remember to take pictures in the shop so that projects that are "on the bench" will be visible as well. But most of those pictures haven't even been taken yet, so they are in line behind the finished works.

Anyway, Welcome!