Adventures in Knife Land

It was a knifie kind of weekend for me.  I was selling knives at the Dalton, Ohio gun show.  
 

The Dalton show is a very nice venue.  It's a large open structure, well-heated with clean, well taken care of restrooms, wide aisles, excellent and reasonably priced food.  I don’t know why WRCA doesn’t want to move our show there.  We can’t stay at the Dover Armory with its tight space, limited parking and unpredictable schedule shuffling.  WRCA just doesn’t like Dalton.  It’s not Dover.

I had a conversation with a young fellow that was very enlightening, but I found him to be a bit of a dim bulb.

Him:       “How come nobody at the show carries Kershaw?”

Me:        “Kershaw is a great knife but the knives are a little expensive.  Walmart sells them and it’s hard to compete on price against them.”

He takes out his Kershaw Blur and flicks out the black, partially serrated tanto blade.  I have the identical one on the table marked at $88.00.

Him:       “You’re right about that.  I just bought this one at Walmart for $66.00.”

Me:        “So you’re the answer to why nobody at the show carries Kershaw.”

Him:       “Huh?”

I also had a left-handed M-21 from CRKT on my table.  It’s in the reduced inventory pile.  I know about 10% of the population is left-handed.  I’d sure buy a knife designed specifically for me if I was a lefty.  I would have snatched it up in a New York minute.  (This reference in no way signifies any recommendation or suggestion you should visit NY.)

I just rotated the clip.  I like 'tip up carry' even for my left-handed knives.

I was explaining to a second rocket scientist that it was left-handed.

Him:       “Are all your knives left handed (including the fixed blades)?

Me:        “Yes, we are from a mirror image universe.  That’s why I’m talking backwards to you.”

What makes it left-handed?  Easy.  The liner lock pushes to the right.  Go ahead.  Check your knife to see which way the liner lock pushes.

I sometimes speculate on used knives, oh excuse me,  previously owned knives.  It’s an expensive activity.  Mis-guess the potential resale or take in a knock-off and you could be waving good-bye to your cash.  It’s worse than Vegas.  At least at Vegas you know you’re going to lose all your money.

I had a chance to purchase a classic Italian switchblade in mint condition.  It was a limited edition production (no. 1 of 100) with polished mammoth ivory handles.  It was incredible.  It was also $500.

Pass. 

I sent him to my friends Dale and Mike.  They took a pass too.  If you want to make money buying and selling you need to remember the golden rule, “Buy low and sell higher.”  It’s very hard to do that above the 500 bucks range.  The owner needed to find a collector, not a seller.

But it wasn’t a completely wasted weekend.  I settled on keeping the left-handed knife for my left pocket.  It was my best deal of the show!

Dover Knife Show Postponed!

The March 2 and 3, 2013 Knife Expo hosted by Western Reserve Cutlery Association has been canceled. 

 

Fear not.  

We will be holding the Knife Expo later this year, April 6th and 7th at the Dover National Guard headquarters.  Same place as before, same times, different calendar page, that’s all.

I don’t know what happened.  It was suggested that the National Guard’s plans changed, or the old business manager forgot to tell the new business manager, or maybe somebody with rank just wanted to throw their weight around.  It doesn’t matter.  

The new show will be April 6 and 7.  The weather should be nice and everyone will have a good time.

If you show up in March, I'm not sure what you'll find, but it will not be the knife show!

Chisel Sharp

I discovered I needed my chisel for a woodworking project.  I’m taking a course in hand-cut dovetails.  I need a special saw, which I have courtesy of my grandfather.  The chisel I have courtesy of myself.

I bought it maybe 30-35 years ago.  It’s a Stanley 5/8 inch wood chisel made in the US.  The steel?  Beats me.  I bought it at a time when Stanley stood for quality and that was enough for me.

I took it once to a community theater when I did technical theatre.  We were building a set with lots of doors, so that mean lots of passage sets (aka doorknobs and locks).  I looked up and found a co-volunteer using my chisel to hammer small nails out of wood.  

I’d like to say that he was able to use his hands after a few years to therapy but I’d never hurt anyone that bad over tools.  Fortunately I put a halt to his activity before too much damage had occurred.  I just took it home and kept the damaged edge as a reminder never to lend any tool I cared about. 

Now it was time to rehabilitate that tool.  So I got out my stones.

Just in case you don’t know, most wood chisels are sharpened on only one side.  Hence the term, chisel-grind.  The flat edge lets you cut straight through the wood, while the beveled edge clears the wood away from the cut.  If you sharpened both sides, yes it would be sharper, but it would drift away from the cut line.

I have a nice Norton combination coarse/fine stone I bought years ago.  It’s 11.5 inches long and 2.5 inches wide and I really like that size.  It’s hard to get the right angle for each stroke, but once you get it, 11 inches gives you a lot of sharpening distance.

I oiled it up and started on the coarse side, but it wasn’t taking the metal off as fast as I wanted.  So I switched to my little DMT combo diamond stone.  These stones use water as a lubricant so it’s easy to clean up and store.  I bought the DMT so I could touch up an axe or knife blade in the field.  The coarse diamond worked great, but the relatively small size made the job tedious.  I also thought the ratio of diamond material to open polymer made the effective sharpening area significantly small and reduced the metal removal efficiency.

On the left the Norton combination stone; the red is the fine grit. The EZE Lap, and the right is my diamond DMT Combo.

I pulled out my EZE Lap, a six inch long fine diamond stone.  That really took the edge down.  Before long I had worked out all the edge damage and had a nice wire edge. 

Now it was back to the Norton stone.  I continued on the coarse side, which made finer marks than the fine diamond EZE Lap.  I guess it makes sense.  The coarse stone is less abrasive than the fine diamond.

I first flat polished the wire edge away on the back of the chisel and did a second uniform one across the chisel’s edge and moved to the other side of the Norton stone, the fine side.  ("Come to the fine side Luke!  I am your father…") Again I removed the wire edge and repeated the sharpening until I had a third wire edge.  I carefully polished the back of the chisel and was finished.

It's a pretty good edge, but the right tip isn't perfect.  I suspect its part of the way I put pressure on the chisel during sharpening.

Did I get it sharp?  I think so.  I shaved a few curls from a block of yew wood I had in the basement and was very happy with its action.

I shaved a few small shavings with my chisel.  I wanted to see how thin I could make them and how much effort it took.

Could I get it sharper?  Maybe.  Depends on the steel.  I could have gone to an ultra fine polish and left the face mirror shiny.  But would the edge hold up?  Steel for chisels is selected for impact and bending properties not necessarily hardness or even edge retention . Some woods are so hard the best you can do is to slowly remove a 32^nd inch thick shaving at a time.  Most woodworkers would rather have to resharpen more often than break a chisel.

I’m happy with the way this sharpening project turned out.  I got a uniform edge at about 25 degrees, with a straight, sharp cutting edge.  

In the spirit of complete honesty I used a little wheeled gismo that holds the chisel at a constant angle.  I don’t have any idea where I bought it, but for sharpening a chisel or wood plane blade, it’s the bomb!!!

You can have quality or cheap, pick one.

I had an interesting conversation at the last gun show with a fellow shopping for a knife.

 

Me: How can I help you sir?

Him: I’m looking for a knife I can carry tip up.

M: That’s very doable.  Let me show you a few I recommend.

H: I want a partial serrated blade.

M:  Take a look at these.

H: I want a quality knife, .... that’s cheap.

M: I think you need to try a few of other the vendors.  The ones with the 2-for-5 bucks baskets, sir.  

I’m still amazed by that conversation.  Some people don't know the difference between quality and price, so they are always looking for that magic combination.

Striving

We all start somewhere.  What’s that expression?  Oh yes!  Even a mighty oak starts from a little acorn.  Of course we don’t discuss the acorn is a little nut…

 

I stand next to Teddy Roosevelt:

“The credit belongs to the man … who strives valiantly, who errs …, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming,…, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly,...."          "Citizenship in a Republic,"
Speech at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910.

I hope Teddy will forgive me for truncating his humongous run-on sentence.  But I believe in what he said.  So I’m pretty excited.   I just got my hands on a knife made by Brian Davis.  It’s an early attempt, in fact it’s his second attempt.  But it’s a glorious attempt!

That's over 10 inches of honest knife.  You could do a lot worse than to have this on you.

The blade is quarter inch thick, 5.5 inches long and 1.75 inches wide.  It appears to have been ground out of a solid piece of steel.   

I liked the balance and the thick blade is awesome!

The handle is black micarta on a full tang with front and rear bolsters.  It’s pretty awesome!  The blade is so close to a full length flat grind it takes a straight edge and a good light to see the slight curve at the blade edge. 

Strictly speaking the blade is a drop point design, but the point has a shape which reminds me of the belly on a skinner.  With all the metal behind the point, this is a blade you can pry with if you had to.

It was described to me as a camp knife.  I can see it in use at a deer camp or cabin.  The overall length is 10.75 inches and the balance point is right on the index finger when you hold it in a hammer grip.  I prefer the weight in my big knives in that position.  I feel it gives me the most control over the knife.  And with a knife this big, control is a vital.

The blade is finished nicely, but one of the problems with Kydex sheaths is grit gets trapped in the plastic and scratches the blade.  There is evidence of that on the blade.  The blade is sharp, but if you examine the edge with a strong light you can see how the edge faces don’t quite meet.  A little touch-up on a diamond stone will set that right.

The micarta isn’t quite symmetric about the handle, but it’s nicely done with the micarta flowing gracefully into the rear bolster. 

The slight asymmetry in the handle didn't seem to affect my grip.

I'm a sucker for these dressier pins!

The handle sports two nice compound pins seen on fancier and more expensive knives. I don’t know the steel, the Rockwell C hardness, or the price.  I do hope to see more of these knives in the future.

Brian, I like your knife.  I think it needs a lanyard hole and a complete flat grind to a shaving edge if the steel and hardness will support it.  But even more, please start marking your blades, even if you have to use a vibratory engraver to scratch your name in the ricasso.  

Remember what Teddy said and do it!

You can reach Brian at thehatedone@sbcglobal.net.  I'm sure he'd be interested in talking about future projects.