Sheath for my #Iämpedahler waldmetz

 Some two weeks ago I came home from work and, after opening a bottle of beer I realized it tasted like piss. So I thought, that couldn´t be it, made myself a tea and took out the leatherworking tools.

 Way late into the night I worked, and yup, I am not exactly proud of it, but at least I did something useful;-), and it does the job quite nicely.

In fact, I like these knives a lot these days. While they are absolutely badass due to an all-steel construction, selective temper and overall layout, they are well balanced and not-so-tactical at all. The sheath I made from top-grain, vegetable tanned, cowhide leather, hardened with soda and spirit and hot-waxed around the knife... I like it and it rides in my rucksack most of these days now...

Mountain man primitive knife from way back then

 I recently redid the grind on this one, which was made long time ago at the Bethaus smithy...

Spring steel, selectively tempered, with a handforged crosspiece.

The handle is Sambar stag antler I found on a flea market, and the ferrules are forged from copper blindcaps from a plumber´s store...

I guess... it´s in for a sheath now... ;-D I did this again in memory of #VolkerAvermann .

Leaf handled knife on the bench...

 Yap, I love these knives. Made from spring steel, they are made fast and are dead reliable and handle well.

 This one is selectively tempered and mildly carburized in the forge. Convex bevel, high to zero...

 Some torsion work on the handle...

And the leaf.

It´s not exactly easy to get everything straight, and certainly you need some practice (I most certainly do... ). But I think, it´s in for a sheath now, and I will use it as a bushcraft knife. Watch this space! ;-)

Proven by time-three bushcraft designs

 These are three knives that have thoroughly earned their merits. I made two of them very long ago and one quite a long time ago. All three have seen some severe amount of abuse, prying, hacking, slicing, cutting, batoning, scraping off putty from windowpanes, cutting plasterboard, levering up doors, even splitting coconuts. All three came out begging for more. All three have something in common: A steel that any modern-day knifemaker would sneer at.

 Spring steel. Crap. Junk. A carbon content of about 0,55-0,75%. No fancy Niobium or Unobtanium alloy. No Damascus, no Wootz.

I love the latter, and we will see that there are knives out of these varieties that also deserve a place, but what does not cease to astound me is how well this material copes with everything you can throw at it.

All three of them have taught me a lot about blade and especially edge geometry, balance and overall layout. Above is the first prototype of my Fimbulmuk design. While not that able a woodworker, it excels in skinning and food prep tasks or even snacking. The two below are just about my favourite bushcraft knives. Both of them I use for all the hard work in the woods and the smithy. The one in the middle is the most able carving knife and best suited for woodworking while not compromising other applications.

The last one is sort of a compromise between the two above. Following the lines of a traditional hunting knife, it provides good woodworking capabilities, albeit not as good as the one with the birch burr handle, but also excels in food prepping and other applications.

I asked myself, why this might be the case?

Now look at the edge lines. The Fimbulmuk´s is by intention quite offset. The last one has an offset, too, but the butt of the handle is more in line with the tip. The resulting balance axis therefore is more of a parallel line to the ground, while the Fimbulmuk´s is more sloped. Even more extreme is the one on the knife with the birchwood handle. By the way, for both the Fimbulmuk as well as the one in the middle (which, by the way was inspired by Ilkka Seikku´s excellent bush prowler knife: http://rautasarvi.blogspot.de/2014/01/bushprowler-by-ilkka-seikku-bushprowler.html), I used a whiplash line scheme for construction. This knife has a very even balance axis. Balance point on all of the three knives is on the index finger. Most dexterous is the one in the middle. This is due to a balance axis/edge line that is not offset and lies directly in line with the handle. There are advantages and disadvantages to this design, but for the most part, this is my favourite. Most of the work I do is woodworking anyway.

But all of these knives will remain faithful companions to my working life in the woods!

On the bench: Leaf-handled EDC

 Long time, no post, but lazy I have been not. Apart from having to clean up a ruin at the ironforge with virtually no help whatsoever, and generally having a shitty time at work to boot, I even managed to get in some forging, mind you! ;-) I like this style of knife. It requires little energy to make (which is fine to date...); I find it is aesthetically appealing, doesn´t look aggressive and handles well. The blade is all spring steel with 0,55-0,6% carbon in it, carburized in the forge and selectively tempered.

 The leaf structure is made with the peen of my new hammer.

 Due to the added chunk in the handle, the design performs way better than typical blacksmith´s knives.

Blade has a high convex bevel to zero, which makes it an able cutter. I like it and will make a sheath for´t in winter ;-)... why is it always winter that´s passing so fast? ;-)

Santoku Bushcraft - and some thoughts on utility

 Why is it that I keep constantly checking on reality? ;-) This is a knife I started some time ago and finally found my resolve to complete. I have worked with some pretty strange steels to date and have followed pretty weird concepts that were more art than artefact-not that they do not work, mind you. Máandevos is as good as they come and rides in my pocket constantly. It has abnormal edge holding capacity, and I also use it to remove grates from other knives, which actually made some jaws drop... ;-)....

BUT.

This is but a study for a prototype. As you well know, I keep experimenting with shape, grind, tempering and fiddle with handle designs to achieve a refinement so that I can one day make a knife that has "the" feel. I have heard that Santoku shape is all the rage at the moment with "tactical" and Bushcraft users and I wanted to find out, so I made one with my trademark Fimbulmyrk handle. I hot-punched the tang and messed up a bit, but this one was just for testers anyway. I took some high-carbon spring steel, nothing fancy, roundabout 0,6-075% carbon, some silicium and maybe some tiny amount of chromium and manganese in it, a steel that most modern-day-knifemakers would not spare a second thought about.

 Spine thickness is 4-1.5 mm, tapering, and the tang tapers, too, albeit not that much. Length is a legal 12 cm. You do not actually need anything longer for everyday camp chores apart from chopping, but I find this length helpful in batoning and even cutting bread. Ever tried to cut a loaf of bread with a 60mm - blade? Then you know what I mean... the same goes for cheese and stuff, so I used up all the length the law had to offer. It´s not that you are not allowed to own anything longer, but you have to have a legal reason to carry it in public, and since I do not want to rely on rights of reason anymore, I tend to play safe. And if you mate it with a small campsite hatchet, you got everything you need for the most of occasions.

The blade is tempered using a three-step-process, with a soft spine, and has a high convex bevel, as is almost customary for me. I find when you do it right, a high convex bevel offers the best compromise between cutting prowess and edge stability. You do not want a hatchet grind, though... it is crucial that the edge has an angle of 15-40°. In this case it has some 20-25°, good and durable still but also cutting well enough.

 I fitted some birchwood burr scales on it, fitted with mosaic pins and a brass tube for a lanyard hole.

 The balance point to date is slightly back of the index finger, but I have to finish the wood still, so that will move slightly more forward. It handles quite dexterous.

And this is the culprit: Having tested and worked it some I can say one thing. The knife certainly is nothing fancy what concerns the materials and is certainly not a work of art. But I can safely say that it will take a lot of abuse and comes back for more. It chops deer antler and carves mild steel rods, and who could ask for more? It even whittles well, can be batoned through knotted hardwood and makes short terms of dicing onions and slicing up tomatoes being held by just two fingers. After all this, it still carved curves in free-hanging printer´s paper. It is a knife that works. On the one hand I am glad that making knives like this costs me less and less effort, so that implies I am on a good path. And while I like making concept knives, sometimes you have to check on your progress and on the sense in what you do. This knife will be a companion you can rely on. Everytime, everywhere. And isn´t this what a knife should do in the first place?

Making art knives is a kind of fetish thing. You tell stories, and that is okay in a world that is devoid of stories, and if storytelling is your fetish... yap, there you go. But you always have to keep in mind that your knives still have to work. They have to be a companion and a tool, and they have to be reliable. Nothing more, nothing less.

I hope I can manage the crossover between both worlds.

Leaf handled blacksmith´s knife

 I must admit I am a bit proud of this... it has been some time since I last had the opportunity to actually forge more complex things, so I was quite enthused to get at it again.

 This is a leaf-handled knife apparently, from spring steel. The leaf structure is hammered out. The knife measures in at a handy 85x3mm. It has seen less than 1 % stock removal and is selectively tempered.

 I did a countertorsion on the handle to add some swing to it.

 The blade has a handy thickness that makes it feel quite dexterous. I have to redo the grind a bit, but then it´ll be good to go.

I am planning a more complex adaptation of the topic with a bit more spice in the steel construction... I will keep this one, though... ;-)

Tomahawk for fun ;-)

On the bench... with a lousy pic by my old camera... a tomahawk I made for fun throwing. The head is spring steel, haft is yew....

On the bench: Bushcraft Santoku and American Tanto

 Now to something different: I was wanting to do a Santoku bushcraft design from laminate steel. This is in fact a first test on the design I made from Unimog spring steel, selectively tempered, 120x 3.8 mm to 2 mm. The holes are punched...unfortunately one o´them did go a bit awry. But, it should work well enough for testing. Blade and tang are tapering for balance. The balance point should be on the index finger if all goes well.

 The testing as I did to date shows great capabilities in kitchen applications and while woodcarving can be done, it is less than ideal... I will further refine the design, I think, to make it suited better for the task. And might be I´d even make some to sell... we´ll see.

 Another altogether different matter is this tanto design, which actually is no tanto design, but an American adaptation of a kind of Katana (Japanese long sword) tip for a tactical knife. I love to experiment with knife designs and like to go to limits. This is a tactical knife, and I have not yet much liked this style, and still do not much take to the martial concept of many of them. But there is no denying the fact that the American Tanto tip is near indestructible and offers advantages not only in penetration capabilities, but also in whittling. For instance, I have broken off the tip of some carving knives when trying to carve a spoon or Kuksa without a spoon knife. Also, when working with a mason, I used my utility knife to cut the grooves into dry building boards with the tip and dulled it quite a lot. Obviously you use a chisel normally;-), but when there is no chisel at hand, you use what is at hand. So, there is more to the American Tanto design, and I do not believe it actually makes for a better weapon, but for a better tool. I forged this blade from some steel I found in the woods. When I found it, it showed some pattern, but even after 24 h of hardcore etching it shows no patina whatsoever. It slams through mild steel rods and I aborted the bending test at 25°.

 Not that it bends easily with a thickness of some 9 mm at the handle! It then tapers quite radically, as does the tang, which is drilled out for balance, too (yeah, I know I messed up, but it cost me three
!glass! drill bits to get through this material. And this after I thoroughly annealed and deep-froze and annealed once more and I could work it with a file). Not that it was that hard, it just was so ductile that the bore chips came in one long and several short ones. The grates were looking as if someone punched a pudding. Weird.

Also, it carves mild steel, chops antler and penetrates oil cans. If anything is a tactical tool, this steel is. I plan on fitting another no-go: A Micarta handle with red G-10 liners and making a hardened multipurpose leather sheath for it... or maybe I´d even have a go at a Kydex (TM) sheath... we´ll see how it goes. Maybe it´ll get desert iron wood or ebony.... would fit the bill just as well, and I don´t like that special waste on my knives still.

I look forward to it even if it is so different to my normal line of thought. In fact, I do, BECAUSE it is so different to everything I would normally make, and it might help broaden my view and confirm new perspectives.

On the bench: Grosses Messer / Bauernwehr machete

Some novel inspiration came upon me with the venue of a 150 kg Beché power hammer (I have heard that tends to happen;-)), so I forged out the preform of a Grosses Messer, but without a crosspiece or Wehrnagel, but an integral bolster. Knives like this were actually historical and in use from the high medieval age up to the 19th century. In contrast to the Grosse Messer, a typically German, English and Scandinavian type of weapon, this was more of a common man´s farming tool. I made it from coil spring steel with a bit more carbon in it (roundabout 0,6%- 0,7%. There´s still a lot of work to be done.

Actually, to be honest, it started out as a Grosses Messer, but I made a mistake with the integral bolster-so no crosspiece. But as I tried the layout I found it extremely dexterous that way and I want to push it to learn a bit about the balance of swords. As is, I forged a taper in that will get more pronounced in the forging process. I want a knife that is an able chopper but could be used as a whittler;-). So, we´ll see how it goes.... I´ll keep you informed of course.

New bushcraft knife from salvaged steel and wood

 This is a new knife project that is almost entirely courtesy of the woods and the deep earth; it is forged out of ancient spring steel with a carbon content of roundabout 0,75-0,9%, and presumeably nothing else. How funny this is if you are accustomed to modern spring steel with its relatively coarse (yet normally fine enough) grain, is illustrated by the story of its making. When I first tempered the blade I treated it quite conservatively, as I always do. If you don´t overdo it, it´s even better for the blade if you quench and normalize it one time more. It turned out soft, or so I thought. Knives from this old steel always tend to feel fluffy while they actually are not. Okay, I thought, there´s enough carbon in it, so I lost a bit of a patience and treated it like "bam", not quite gently. Culprit is, it was too brittle, so when I tested it, the tip broke off. It then sat in my drawer for a while until I thought, well, there´s still enough of it left, make it work.

At a recent hammer - In at Kai´s (by the way, thank you again, bro!), I reworked the blade and did some heating the blade. I simply wrapped a wet rug around the handle and heated the blade until it showed a golden hue. Then I ground the edge line and spine line down a bit and redid the edge bevel, and here it comes.

Blurry pic, I know... but you can see there´s a hollow forged in for balance. The blade now comes in at 90 mm. The handle is made from ancient bog oak from an ancient mine in the Muttental and is some 150 years old, put on with modern mosaic pins. The steel is approximately 100 years old. I like the fact that all materials were given by the woods and earth which will be its natural habitat.

I will make a clipper sheath for it, and it´ll be ready to rumble...;-)

New knife for beating around the bush;-)

 This one is for all those fuckers who want the better of me... eat dirt! You won´t stop me doing what I love.

This is a new knife from very old steel I found in the woods, leaf spring steel from an old carriage or something, selective temper, high convex bevel, copper ferrule, stag antler from the flea market and a citrate fit into the pommel.

 The spine gradually tapers towards the tip.

The pommel.

On the bench these days

 At the recent crafts event I had the opportunity to forge a bit for myself. Top to bottom: Damascus Seax blade from monster Damascus by Matthias Zwissler, a shape that will hopefully become a decent sword from spring steel, two Damascus blades out of Andreas Hendrichs - Damascus, a monster Damascus stock, an awl or shish kebap spit and a BBQ fork, plus a spoon

 The spoon. I consider doing some carving to the rear end, which is a bit sturdy, so to say.

 The spit and fork.

 Amulets and a caplifter. Left to right: Birka amulets (sickle and fire striker), which were worn in combination with a Thor´s hammer (miolnir) pendant. Small Miolnir pendant, a larger one and the aforementioned caplifter which will be great for a key ring.

 And an iron age interpretation of a knife. I used a Hofi-twist to the handle, which is finished with a brass brush. The knife is made from spring steel and, as usual, has a selective temper. The bevel is a high convex one along the lines of a Solingen "Dünnschliff", which will be seeing some work still.

Medieval "pen knife" - a cooperation project

This is the blade I made for Steffen, who re-enacts a medieval scholar and who wanted a knife to cut the pens of goose feathers for writing. He had given me a very detailed input into the design. It should have been left-handed;-), and I researched the rest. It is quite an interesting knife to forge, for the blade has to be very, very thin and razor - sharp. So I did some very thorough annealing and gave it but a very conservative temper at roundabout 56 HRC. It is that flexible that it stands the Solingen nail test (when drawn flat over a nail, an elastic "wave" forms). It had taken me some experimenting, but it all went okay in the end. It can be stropped over a leather belt, like a razor. Erich turned the beautiful handle out of boxwood, and the magic troll glued it on.

Family project, you see;-). It all worked out great, and Steffen was quite enthused about it. We traded for a flatrate of some bottles of his delicious and healthy "Hippocras" spiced wine.

For me it was quite the joy to make this knife and I hope it serves him very well in his scripture work.

New iron age interpretation

 This is a knife that interprets the lines of a Scandinavian iron age design after finds all over the place. It is not a viking age design, as it is often mistakenly tauted, but dating back a bit earlier.

 I tried this torsion work to which Kai inspired me to.

The blade is made from junkyard scrap steel, 110xtapering from 4-2mm with less than 5% stock removal, a convex bevel and a selective temper.