1095 Hunter

[tomsm44]

After posting pictures of a few I'm working on, I decided I needed to put a completed knife on here just to show I actually finish one occasionally.  This is a stock removal blade I started around the start of summer, before I started doing any forging, that I made a mistake on.  I spotted it in my shop a couple of weeks ago and decided to see if I could fix it.  A slight change to the profile and reground the clip and it ended up better than the original design in my opinion.  Got it heat treated and slapped some scales on it last weekend then put the leather together earlier this week.  

4" blade 8 1/4" OAL
1095 bleach etched finish
Dyed/stabilized curly maple and cow bone with 1/16" copper pins

   

   

Thanks for looking, and as always, please feel free to offer any critiques or advice you think might help me improve my work.

Matt Toms

[tomsm44]

Here's a closer view of the blade.

 

[long time archer]

Good looking knife. I enjoy, and am a little envious of, craftsmen who can turn out such beautiful work. Thanks for sharing.

[Bladepeek]

Nicely done clip. How do you age the blade?
Ron

[Steve Nuckels]

Wow Matt!  Nice work! Nice lines, should serve you well!

Steve
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Potomac Forge
Member, W.F. Moran Jr. Museum & Foundation
ABS

[tomsm44]

Thanks guys.  This one is going to my cousin for her husband for Christmas.  The blade finish is the blue bleach boil method.  You can look it up online or look back at Mr Darcy Ellis's end of the world bowie thread from last year.  He used this finish on it and he's who instructed me on how to do it.  Really looks good with bone or antler handles.

[akaboomer]

Looks good Matt.  I like white bone on a knife and I really like the way you pinned the scales on. You executed it nicely and many times a little re-design helps.
The only thing I could critique is a personal preference thing. I love the flow going on with this one but I think I would like it if there were a bit of curve in the clip. Not much, just kind of subtle. But my opinion is worth about what you paid for it.

I really like the knife and appreciate you showing it.

Chris

[D.Ellis]

Great looking knife Matt. nice blend of classy, and rustic  
Darcy

[tomsm44]

Chris, I hadn't considered that but now you mention it I agree a little curve would have looked nice.  I have a little bowie in the works with a curved clip that should turn out if I do my part.  I'm working on developing my eye for getting the line and flow right.  Takes practice but I think I'm improving.  The tip on this one was initially a little higher and the OAL was about 1/4" longer.  This was my first clip and I originally ground it with a shoulder/plunge line/or whatever you would call it at the top of the clip.  I messed up on the shoulder and then got careless trying to fix it and messed the tip up.       I had to drop the point down to remove the mess up which allowed me to extend the clip grind out of the top of the blade rather than having a shoulder there.  If I had done this on the original profile, the angle would have put the grind line coming almost all the way to the handle.  That's why I say it worked better this way.

Darcy, classy and rustic is exactly what I was going for.  Kinda like me only without the classy part.   :D   Have to average me and my wife together to get both.

[Lamey]

nice!

[Kevin Evans]

Nicely done.
I like straight clips on small hunters
I'd say you did about perfect.  

[akaboomer]

First clip? Hard to believe, because you did it so well. Like I said itis a ppreference thing, like Kevin proved. You should be very proud of this knife, I would be. I can't wait to see more.  I also agree with you that it looks better with the tip lower than it would have higher.

Chris

[WESTBROOK]

Boil it in bleach/water and then wire wheel off the rust?

Eric

[tomsm44]

Blue with cold blue, then soak in pure bleach.  I leave it in about 15-20 minutes per etching cycle.  Then rinse with hot water.  The method I found online says use boiling water to neutralize the bleach but I've been using hot tap water and it seems to work fine.  Clean rust off with extra fine steel wool then polish with wet/dry sandpaper.  Repeat bleach/rinse/polish steps until desired finish is reached.

Check this thread out.  It's a long thread so it'll take a little looking, but Darcy goes in to more detail about it and has some nice pictures as well.
 http://tradgang.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=110;t=004464

Matt Toms