Official introduction - some of my work (Sheath pic added)

[tomsm44]

I've been on this forum for a few months now and decided I would introduce myself and put some pictures of my work on here.  

My name is Matt Toms.  I'm 28, born and raised in north Louisiana, and still live here.  I am married with two beautiful children and am a pipeline operations technician by trade.  I started building knives about 6 or 7 years ago from mass produced blades.  I started grinding blades from stock this past spring and have ground about a half dozen so far.  I have asked several questions on here and have gotten some really good responses to all of them, but haven't posted any of my work on here yet.  So, here it goes.  I am fairly new to this, so one of the main reasons that I want to post these is for input from some of you guys.  Any tips, pointers, and criticisms are welcome.

This first knife is a drop point.  Blade length: 4", OAL: 9".  Polished 1095 blade, curly walnut scales, aluminum bolsters(kind of a sating finish), and stabilized turquois/aluminum spacers.  I prefer nickle silver for bolsters, but somebody gave me an 8 foot piece of aluminum bar stock, so I'm trying to use some of it. I made the mosaic pins from aluminum and brass tubing and filled it with 2 part epoxy mixed with a drop of black acrylic paint.
 

[tomsm44]

Knife #2:  This is my attempt at a bird & trout blade.  Bead blasted 1095 blade, stabilized amboyna burl scales, aluminum bolsters, bone colored corian inlay, red/alumimnum spacers.
 

Here is a picture of both of these knives from the top to show the file work on the spines.
 

[oldpaths]

Great look'n knives,looking forward to seeing more!!!

[Lin Rhea]

Very nice work! We're glad you're here.

[D.Ellis]

Looks like nice clean work. I would suggest rounding the corners out more for grip comfort. They look to be pretty square. With a bit more contouring these would be excellent.
Darcy  

[tomsm44]

Thanks guys.  It's nice to hear that from craftsmen as accomplished as you guys.

Darcy, that is exactly what I was looking for.  I want to learn from you guys' experiences.  I have built a few knives with more rounded corners and agree that they are much more comfortable.  I personally like the appearance of the sharp edges and was trying something new on these which didn't work as well as I had hoped.  The grips are what I guess would be called convex:  thinner at top and bottom, thicker at middle.  It seems to help a lot with comfort when leaving the edges sharp and both of these are more comfortable than they appear.  They would probably cause hand fatigue more quickly with extended use than a more rounded design though.  I'm still trying to find that happy medium.

I'll try to get some more pictures up with the sheaths.  Oh, and I forgot the dimensions on the second knife:  4.5" blade, 9" OAL.

[Trapper Rob]

Great looking knives

[RkyMtn Joe]

I'm not a knife maker but I sure admire the work of those who are.  Looks to me like you are well on your way to fitting into an exclusive group of craftsmen.  Nice work on those knives and I like both of them.  Great job!

Joe

[tomsm44]

I finished up a couple of sheaths for these two this week.  I'm still struggling with this leather work, but I get a little better with each one I do.  I did the walnut handled drop point in the black sheath for a friend of mine to give to his co-worker who is a biker, in case anybody wonders what's up with the buckle.  I thought it would go well with a Harley.

 

[Ray Hammond]

You captured a biker jacket or boot look very well with the black sheath!

Glad to have you on the forum!

[tomsm44]

Thanks Ray.  Probably my favorite part of building knives is trying to come up with something unique to fit a person's personality.  I've done a few that didn't turn out that well.  There seems to be a fine line between adding character/beauty to a knife and making it look corny.  By the way, the four 1/16 pins on the bird/trout knife were intended to be a subtle nod to a baseball diamond.  The guy I made it for was a college baseball player and is now a coach.  Glad to be here.