- Joined
- Jul 23, 2015
- Messages
- 12,474
I think it's official. At six knives, I think she can be called a collector. I'll quickly say my father had a collection as well, though after his passing they were distributed to me and my brothers.
But today I'm posting about Mom's collection.
All were made by me. My maker's mark has been retroactively added to the ones that were made before I had a mark. It is on each one in the pic, but may be hard to see because of either the patinas for the two carbon steel blades on the right, or the lighting and angle. But it is there.
So in chronological order we have the camo G10 handled knife, which started off as a way too thick chef blank in 9Cr14Mov I bought from Premium Knife Supply back in the day. Probably 2016. I stuck a handle on it and gifted it to Mom sometimes that year or the next. She never used it. Kept it in a drawer. In 2018 I finally upgraded from my ridiculously underpowered and inadequate 4 x 36 grinder I had been using up until then, and learned that hardened steel could be thinned out in a snap, without ruining heat treatment. So I did that for that knife (bearing in mind her admonishment to not remove all the "polka dots" (i.e. peened finish), so I left the other side of the blade with a bit of those divots (not visible in the pics). She actually uses it now.
Next was the large chef pink G10 handle and black Micarta bolster. This one is from sawmill blade steel, heat treated and ground to a very thin edge geometry. She told me it held an edge better than any knife she had ever owned. She hired me to make that one.
Next we have another gift I made for her, the little paring/utility knife at the far left. 15N20 blade steel, pink G10 scales with black G10 bolsters and white G10 liners and spacers.
Then another gift, on the far right, a hawkbill paring knife in LC200N with pink scales, white bolsters and black carbon fiber pins. It's a great little package.
The one just to the left of the hawkbill is her first knife in AEB-L, also another commission. She told me she wanted a lemon knife, something with a near zero grind (well, she didn't say that but she said she wanted it to cut lemons like an orange knife I had made for Dad some years ago, and that one is zero ground). She wanted pink and yellow, but I told her the pieces of pink I had left were not quite big enough, but offered her the "pink and black" layered G10 (it's really salmon, not pink), and asked her if I had creative license to finish the handle. She said okay, and she told me after using it only 30 seconds that she loved it... and then I found out later that she had actually been disappointed in the way the handle looks, when she admitted to me that she like the "layered look" of the micarta on the knife I had just made for my brother. Knife afis know what I mean, the layered of linen that get exposed when contouring the handle.
So I told her that I would refinish the handle for her and that the sheath would fit a little differently afterwards once I remolded it. She said "actually, how about I just hire you to make a new knife?"
To which, of course, I said "Sure throw as much money at me as you want!"
So now she has two lemon knives. The third from the right with the pink sheath is the most recent one I made her, and we collaborated more closely on the design for this one. She was okay with my using smaller strips of pink as an outer layer for a custom layered scale design, and she also wanted a bit more blade length. Here are closer pics of that one:
This one is 9Cr14Mov, from a skinner blank I also bought from Premium Knife Supply years ago, and never got around to using. It was an upswept design with about another 3/4" of trailing point, which I cut off for her knife. The handle also had a pointy butt that stuck out at the top by an extra 1/2" or so, but that was not needed for this knife, and she has smaller hands. I explained to her the difference between AEB-L (which she likes because of how I talk it up, and the geometry on the first knife I made her) and 9Cr, and that as a lemon knife, she would likely never notice any difference in use, and she was okay with the "downgrade".
She likes the knife.
But when I was there for dinner, and the decision was made to lay out all her knives on the table for a photo, she said (about the first lemon knife), "You know, now that I am looking at them all together, I really like that handle!".
So it goes.
If she ever gets anything new, I'll post it here.
But today I'm posting about Mom's collection.
All were made by me. My maker's mark has been retroactively added to the ones that were made before I had a mark. It is on each one in the pic, but may be hard to see because of either the patinas for the two carbon steel blades on the right, or the lighting and angle. But it is there.
So in chronological order we have the camo G10 handled knife, which started off as a way too thick chef blank in 9Cr14Mov I bought from Premium Knife Supply back in the day. Probably 2016. I stuck a handle on it and gifted it to Mom sometimes that year or the next. She never used it. Kept it in a drawer. In 2018 I finally upgraded from my ridiculously underpowered and inadequate 4 x 36 grinder I had been using up until then, and learned that hardened steel could be thinned out in a snap, without ruining heat treatment. So I did that for that knife (bearing in mind her admonishment to not remove all the "polka dots" (i.e. peened finish), so I left the other side of the blade with a bit of those divots (not visible in the pics). She actually uses it now.
Next was the large chef pink G10 handle and black Micarta bolster. This one is from sawmill blade steel, heat treated and ground to a very thin edge geometry. She told me it held an edge better than any knife she had ever owned. She hired me to make that one.
Next we have another gift I made for her, the little paring/utility knife at the far left. 15N20 blade steel, pink G10 scales with black G10 bolsters and white G10 liners and spacers.
Then another gift, on the far right, a hawkbill paring knife in LC200N with pink scales, white bolsters and black carbon fiber pins. It's a great little package.
The one just to the left of the hawkbill is her first knife in AEB-L, also another commission. She told me she wanted a lemon knife, something with a near zero grind (well, she didn't say that but she said she wanted it to cut lemons like an orange knife I had made for Dad some years ago, and that one is zero ground). She wanted pink and yellow, but I told her the pieces of pink I had left were not quite big enough, but offered her the "pink and black" layered G10 (it's really salmon, not pink), and asked her if I had creative license to finish the handle. She said okay, and she told me after using it only 30 seconds that she loved it... and then I found out later that she had actually been disappointed in the way the handle looks, when she admitted to me that she like the "layered look" of the micarta on the knife I had just made for my brother. Knife afis know what I mean, the layered of linen that get exposed when contouring the handle.
So I told her that I would refinish the handle for her and that the sheath would fit a little differently afterwards once I remolded it. She said "actually, how about I just hire you to make a new knife?"
To which, of course, I said "Sure throw as much money at me as you want!"
So now she has two lemon knives. The third from the right with the pink sheath is the most recent one I made her, and we collaborated more closely on the design for this one. She was okay with my using smaller strips of pink as an outer layer for a custom layered scale design, and she also wanted a bit more blade length. Here are closer pics of that one:
This one is 9Cr14Mov, from a skinner blank I also bought from Premium Knife Supply years ago, and never got around to using. It was an upswept design with about another 3/4" of trailing point, which I cut off for her knife. The handle also had a pointy butt that stuck out at the top by an extra 1/2" or so, but that was not needed for this knife, and she has smaller hands. I explained to her the difference between AEB-L (which she likes because of how I talk it up, and the geometry on the first knife I made her) and 9Cr, and that as a lemon knife, she would likely never notice any difference in use, and she was okay with the "downgrade".
She likes the knife.
But when I was there for dinner, and the decision was made to lay out all her knives on the table for a photo, she said (about the first lemon knife), "You know, now that I am looking at them all together, I really like that handle!".
So it goes.
If she ever gets anything new, I'll post it here.
