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I was gone most of this week to the Bernese highlands, where Dad and I attended a knife-making course led by the world-class Swiss goldsmith and knife-maker Arthur Soppera. Mom and my youngest brother came along and walked through the huge open air museum of the Ballenberg while Dad and I worked.
The course was my graduation gift from Dad, and it was so much fun I’m looking into getting my own grinder and drill machine now so I can keep making blades.
There were three men in the class besides us. One of them, a woodworker by profession, made a sheath for his blade. We worked from 0830 in the morning to 1800 every day, and this is the result:
The bottom of these two blades is mine, the top is Dad’s. Everybody started with 30 cm of carbon steel, which we formed with hacksaws and files and refined at the grinder. My handle is made of red deer horn, with a front cap of micarta (imitation ivory) and a back cap of mother-of-pearl.
It’s a solid knife, but rather hinterlastig (heavy in the back. I need a German-English dictionary for technical terms). It won’t replace my CRKTs and Smith & Wessons for everyday use, but it taught me how to make blades, and I can improve from this.
And to finish, a cute picture of my doggie after my little brother got his hands on her.
Great looking knives!!! Your workmanship is excellent. They’re certainly a much better quality than you usually see in stores here. 😯
What a fun trip!! I bet you had a blast, you blood-thirsty wench! I love the pics, and that just sounds like a great time altoghether!!!! I think Nirvana may get a bit jealous. 😛 I have trouble determining which of you likes weaponry more.
😆 😈 I’m doing good in that case, Ski! I did have a great time. The weather was great, and it was nice to have really dirty hands at the end of the day.
The workmanship was excellent – especially on the woodworker’s blade and on the blade made by a teacher who has experience making knives. He’s a perfectionist, and he used mirabelle wood. His knife is the one with light wood and a brass hand guard. Beautiful piece.Wow, that sounds really neat!
While hiding somewhere in my head I'm on the lookout for white oriental dragons! Please let me know if you know of any available. Thank you!
Those are really nicely made.
I went to a knife show a week or so ago. So many neat things! I really want to get a Damascene steel blade one of these days. A real one, not the silly fakes you sometimes see getting sold cheap. Maybe a historically accurate one, even. But they’re very expensive. Moreso even than Windstones, sometimes.
Lovely Knives GB! Thruly amazing if that was your first try! I bet you only get better. I really like the deer horn handle too. Glad you had a great time!
Oh and puppy is cute too!
Isn’t she, fox? 😆
My blade does well as a fancy letter opener. 😛 I didn’t plan it with much more in mind. For regular day work I carry one of my folding blades with me, and it’s too big for that, and for woods work I take one of combat or survival blades with a sawback. This horn-handled piece with its Turkish clip isn’t fit for much else that I do besides opening letters.
Besides, I think I don’t want to mess it up. 😆
SPark – damascus! Drool. Yeah, I want at least one of those too. I’ll pick some up when I’m in the States. It’s okay to buy brand-name blades over E-Bay, but I’m getting damascus, I want something with a custom flair, and I’d rather not rely on pictures.Let us know when you get the functional stuff going GB, we’ll definately hit you up 😉 *if we can’t use it to open car doors…..* LoL j/k
Ooh, I won’t be able to match Cold Steel right away! 😆
I researched machinery today. Tabletop drill systems will be no problem, but I haven’t found a grinder yet. I hope I don’t have to import one, but there are lots of nice ones of E-Bay U.S.
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