11 Knife Knuts+38 Knives+Tichbourne Tour+22 Scans = BF Toronto Luncheon!!!

[RL]

Hi All,

Welcome to the review of the first official Bladeforums Toronto luncheon! Our first event featured a tour of the shop of local knifemaker George Tichbourne followed by a knife show-and-tell at a nearby restaurant. Special thanks go out to George for helping to set this up!

Knife knuts in attendance were:
George Tichbourne, Carol Tichbourne, Sean O’Neil (Super Alloys), Dale Tipert (wyrm), Bob Potter, Holger Enge (cockroachfarm), Tom Lagan, Tom Todd, Eaphan (aaerius), Murray White, and your humble scribe Robert Laufer (RL).

On to the shop tour…as you might well imagine, there are a lot of stages involved in creating even the most basic knife. In order to illustrate these various stages in a feasible amount of time, George set aside some knives at various stages of production for our lesson on the basics.

The first step is to select a “pattern” for the knife, such as the ones pictured below.

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid3/pf76e33e0d38c0b6f24240c5c6526a632/fde901fa.jpg

Next, the pattern is traced onto the stock material (440C in this case). Note the blue coating on the steel…this allows the scribe marks to be seen throughout the entire cutting process. BTW, although it does not show well in the picture, the middle piece of stock is actually a bar of Damasteel.

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid3/p98837628072a157eb3d6bbe1654dc156/fde901f4.jpg

Once the blade is cut out of the stock (the piece with the blue coating on the handle), it is sent out for heat/cryo treatment. As you can see on the unfinished knife in the middle, the knife returns with some oxidation thanks to the heat treat. The heat treat ovens are nitrogen filled during the heat treat process to prevent oxidation but the nitrogen does leave a slight tan colour on the knife blade. George does some preliminary polishing to remove the oxidation. The white coating on the blade is a sticky plastic material used to prevent scratches from handling and to prevent careless knifemakers from cutting themselves.

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid3/pf818fb14d641e9b859cbf7e5b0c96409/fde901ee.jpg

Next, a material is selected for the hand-guard (brass in this case) and is fitted to the tang. Once the guard is in place, a handle material is selected and attached to the tang via two-sided tape. The tape is used to keep the handle from moving while it is “line-bored” to ensure that the fastening pins will fit squarely through the two handle slabs and the tang. These stages can be seen below.

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid3/p7f95b1138f7dbb8aedab9c0b13412ebc/fde901ed.jpg


Now the knife is ready for sharpening and polishing to a mirror finish. George selects one of his many sanding belts, depending on the desired finish , for the most part George does mirror finish on all of his blades. Here are the belts (on the wall)

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid3/p54332df0b7ec61c7c33b50b40faea87f/fde901e9.jpg


and George sharpening away (note the sparks)

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid3/pd8d23200b00dc4d9a1a9af3f92481c7e/fde901e1.jpg


Once the main edge has been ground, the knife is ready for finishing and polishing. Once again, George selects one of his many finishing wheels

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid3/p8033288e306ec0da39a56897cb2e1bf5/fde901dc.jpg

and begins polishing

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid3/pfed3c275e8b5089047ed2b5346829433/fde901d8.jpg

Before the process is complete, George will continually test for sharpness, as he does here with free-hanging newspaper

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid3/p473ce7ab88f16cafaecf11fb574e078b/fde901d4.jpg

George shows the finished knife to us eager knife knuts.

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid3/p9382e8b6a20197449e32bac44b069022/fde901cd.jpg


The final step is to etch in George’s logo using a low voltage AC power source and a silk screen with his name on it.

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid3/p5b13f702f288d304bed3b5ed1c670d55/fde901c7.jpg

Here are some finished knives ready for shipping!

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid3/p886911c4dc1fcadb92cf276d8b0dcf34/fde901c2.jpg

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid3/p3449858279aafa1c27fea53c5a48a06b/fde901bd.jpg

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid3/pec043ddd200e65e6cb00e64ebfd8e43d/fde901b8.jpg

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid3/p0247eaac8e0edfd82b2f82f8dd2c9331/fde901b2.jpg

Now on to the restaurant…the conversation started with a “heated” discussion of Canadian knife laws but the fisticuffs quickly ended once the Walker and Lovestrand started making their way around the table (for some reason we were “distracted” ). Here’s a group shot:

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid3/pd1c3c0c54228147322a9b318bac2437a/fde81974.jpg

As you can see in the pic, folders were quite well represented with at least one Axis lock, compression lock, liner lock, framelock, and Speed Safe available for all to examine. In terms of production folder brands, we had knives from Spyderco, EKI, Emerson, Benchmade Kershaw, and MOD. In terms of custom folders, we had a diverse range including a Tom Mayo XXL TNT, Dale Reif Matrix (which has now earned my “smoothest opening folder I have ever handled” title), and a spectacular Michael Walker art knife with a dazzling array of Bud Weston folders in the mix. Based on the samples of Weston’s work, many attendees felt that he will become the maker over the next few years.

A close-up of a few folders:

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid3/pa1203ba3ad17601b85c11bfae802fefa/fde81973.jpg

Of course, there was no shortage of fixed-blades either. We had sub-hilt fighters, stag-handled hunting knives, Japanese cord wraps (not shown in pics), and A LOT of small integral knives. Once again, a wide array of custom makers was represented, including Eric Elson, Ivan Campos. Geno Denning, Jeff Diotte, Allen Blade, Brian Lyttle, RJ Martin, and Schuyler Lovestand.

A couple of close-ups of the Lovestrand

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid3/pea300c5abf4ea60d1df4e6ce369bf724/fde81972.jpg

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid3/pe6cf7890f4cc1d295215f0617205b130/fde81971.jpg

BTW, many of the knives passed around were INSANELY sharp and a couple of us did get cut (I won’t mention any names…besides, I still don’t know how I did it…oops was that out loud? )

Here are most of the attendees…(Eaphan, Murray, Dale, Tom, Bob, Tom, Holger)

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid3/p992b5ad099b227c41561b4bfc7c10ff3/fde8196f.jpg

And here I am with the Lovestrand

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid3/pe60f3722fb72147401773dbae256f8ac/fde8196b.jpg

Thanks again to all of those who attended (and to all who read this post)…I hope we do this again soon!

RL

 

[Blades]

Cool. Nice pics.


Blades

 

[samhell]

Thanks for the pics and the write up. Sounds like a great time. Go look at Murray's photo site to see what he left at home.

 

[Atomic Zero]

What an amazing meeting of blades...um, forumites! It's nice to see a diversity in types there. Looks like you guys had a lot of fun! Probably freaked out the wait staff.

I saw one of Lovestrand's knives in the latest TK and it looked great (and quite a name). It's nice to see more "candid" shots of it. Outstanding!

Zero

 

[hstdist]

Lucky b****** Maybe I should have put up with a day off work, 12hr drive snowstorms and icy highways

 

[george tichbourne]

Things like that are always a lot of fun. Other than meeting a lot of nice people in a social setting the chance to handle some really well made knives made my day.

I had never been able to spend a lot of time getting to know the ins and outs of a Michael Walker liner lock before and learned a lot.
The new maker that I was impressed with most was Bud Weston. Bud's folders have come so far since I last saw one at the guild show last April I think that he will soon be unable to keep up with the demand.
The engraver that he has had doing work for him must be commended, deep clean work and coverage even on the front of the bolsters.

I look forward to doing this again.

 

[cockroachfarm]

A historical event - and a wonderful way to spend a Saturday afternoon! Great people, great knives.

A big "Thanks!" to Carol & George Tichbourne for co-hosting and to Robert Laufer for getting the ball rolling. Looking forward to the next meeting!

 

[Dexter Ewing]

Robert - thanks for the tour of George's shop. It's always interesting to see the type of tools and machinery a maker uses. Those lunchtime photos of all the production and custom knives laying on the table remind me a lot of the times the NC guys get together for lunch!

 

[Bobby B]

I'll have to pay closer attention and maybe go to the next event...
That sounds like it was fun!
Rob