Knifemaker Build-Off 2011 (Day 1)

For the past few years I have been organizing a friendly knifemaking competition on the Custom Knives and Guns Forum.

The rules are simple: 2 knifemakers compete against each other, making a knife in 5 days and documenting the process on the forum. The competition is great as it pushes the makers to make new models and try new things they haven't done before, and it gives the collectors an inside view of the making process and the shops.

Yesterday I started my competition against German knifemaker Uli Hennicke.

So I am supposed to start at 9am EST.... but I can't start right away... I have been thinking about this Build-Off since the first of the year, going through materials selection, designs and how I wanted to put everything together. The way I work is I go through a development process in my mind, then I start doodling and rough draft. Most of the time the rough draft is about 80% there. I had a design set but something did not feel right with me; the more I looked at it the more I felt it was not translating my thoughts and feelings. To many it would look just fine but I just wasn't happy with it.

At the last minute I went back to the drawing board. This was a good and bad thing: Good is that I believe the second drawing flows a lot smoother. I took elements from my past, polished it and upgraded it for today's knife collectors. The bad part about this is that I have been working the past 3 days on making patterns and I am not done. I will be spending part of today completing the patterns, fixturing and tooling. The reason why I spend so much time on these patterns is that it makes the knifemaking process a lot smoother and more precise. The cleaner your patterns, the better your knife turns out.

This is the first drawing:



This is the second one:



Here are some of the patterns already done:



After spending the morning finishing my templates; I finally get into the meat of it and start on the knife!

Drawing the various parts on the materials:


Cutting on the bandsaw:


Blade on the surface grinder:


Drilling the holes:


Putting the serrations on the blade with the pantograph:


Starting the grind:


Tri grind done and blade ready for heat-treating:


This is what I got done yesterday; I will post today's progress shortly.