The cleaver discussion thread.....

A couple of big wood chopping meat cleavers that I was commissioned to forge recently:

This one was from a sketch the customer sent me. We're both pleased with how closely I was able to match what he drew. The top edge is for chopping dead branches right next to the trunk, and is shaving sharp. The blade is 13 1/2" of 5160, the handle is two layers of marine epoxy-impregnated paracord over a foundation of neoprene.





He also commissioned a Benghazi Warfighter knife from me with matching wrap. To give a sense of scale:



And a big two-handed carcass splitter with a blade 17 1/2" long, also of 5160, with a single layer of marine epoxy-impregnated paracord over neoprene. The handle is about 21".



 
AWESOME. Let's see some meat-cutting action! (Or are meat cutting knife videos already trademarked? :rolleyes: )
 
Hi guys. I bought this French cleaver at the Newark Antiques fair in Nottinghamshire, UK. The maker's mark (only partially made) has a picture of a shield with a castle on one half and what looks like a fern or a tree on the other. The first word of the text looks like trempé to me, which means tempered.
I don't think it's for using against a chopping block because the blade is not curved. I think it's a butcher's splitter, but maybe it's for cutting tree branches.
I got it for £20 and I think it's really great; check out how pristine the handle is.
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I just mailed off an interesting project: The biggest carcass splitter I've built to date. It was the widest and heaviest blade I've made (though not the longest), and I really want to make more. Probably will have one on my table at the Blade Show in June.

carcassplitterfinal by James Helm, on Flickr

The blade is 18" long by 3 1/2" wide, with an overall length of 40 1/2".

Its size made it difficult to take a picture that really showed the size and proportions correctly, but I got a few, and shot a video comparing it with an antique carcass splitter I was given by a customer.

Here's the starting blank, cut from 1/4" x 3" 5160.

carcasssplitter02 by James Helm, on Flickr

After forging out, the blade was about 4" at its widest, though after trimming the end to be aesthetically pleasing, it was 3 1/2".

carcasssplitter04 by James Helm, on Flickr

Comparison with the antique carcass splitter.

carcasssplitter08 by James Helm, on Flickr

Ready to heat treat. To give an idea of size, my anvil is 148 lbs, and the face is about 4" x 15".

carcasssplitter08c by James Helm, on Flickr

It was so large, I couldn't fit the whole thing into my kiln that I use to draw temper. I ended up holding the kiln lid open with firebricks, then filling in the gap with various bits of broken fire brick. If you look closely, the end of the tang is poking out between two bricks just under the little angled tab on the lid.

carcasssplitter09 by James Helm, on Flickr

Ready for mischief!

carcasssplitter13 by James Helm, on Flickr

There is a better look at both carcass splitters, more details, more construction pics, wildly irresponsible swinging about of an 18" long razor-like blade, and general silliness in this video.

 
Blade Forums has a kitchen-cutlery section where i have put up photos of cleavers I have found, so why is this thread here???
 
gben said:
Blade Forums has a kitchen-cutlery section where i have put up photos of cleavers I have found, so why is this thread here???
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Strictly speaking I suppose you're right, but then again two-handed cleavers qualify as chopping tools and aren't irrelevant especially after we start encouraging threads about timber saws, hammers, picks, shovels and scythes. I rarely peruse the kitchen-cutlery or any of the knife threads on this forum, by the way.
 
This is sort of the catch-all forum where agricultural tools get posted. Industrial cleavers are more agricultural than kitchen, and in a modern context see more use on a small scale farm or homestead for livestock processing than in a kitchen context. So it could be argued it fits in either forum, and this one works fine.
 
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