The BladeForums.com 2024 Traditional Knife is ready to order! See this thread for details:
https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/bladeforums-2024-traditional-knife.2003187/
Price is $300 ea (shipped within CONUS). If you live outside the US, I will contact you after your order for extra shipping charges.
Order here: https://www.bladeforums.com/help/2024-traditional/ - Order as many as you like, we have plenty.
Oh wow. I didn't expect my work to end up on here. lol. Sadly, the top and bottom wrenches didn't make very good knives. They were from cheaper wrenches, but it had more metal for me to work with. I had hoped that I could harden the metal, since it came out looking like a better knife(in my opinion). The middle one is made from chrome vanadium which wasn't too hard to harden and seems to keep a pretty good edge. The only thing I don't like about them is the lack of metal that I have to start with, but they are also longer than the other two in that picture. The picture itself is kind of old, here is what my wrench knives look like now:
They are pretty fun to make though. I never imagined it would circulate like it has or I would have taken a better picture. lol.
No problem!I only post my work on here ever so often. I've been meaning to post more, but I really haven't had a lot of time to in the last few months. Honestly, I haven't tried a whole lot of different types of wrenches out. I try to keep all of my Remnant pieces as affordable as I possibly can. What I did was gathered up a few of the locally sold wrenches and tried to get in touch with the companies that made the tools to get an idea of what metal I was working with. Some of them actually helped me out, but most of the edge testing feel on me to heat treat edge of them using different temps/quenches. I ended up just going with Stanley wrenches as they aren't too expensive and the chrome vanadium seems to hold a good edge.
I figure if money was no object then I would go with a much more expensive wrench which would probably have more metal on it. Which means as much to me as being able to heat treat the wrench. It's almost pointless to be able to heat treat one if its going to be as thin as a fillet knife when I'm finished, unless I'm going for a fillet knife. lol. Again my wrench knives sell for $30 at the moment, so you can imagine how limited my research on the wrenches were. I figure if I hadn't had such good results from the chrome vanadium wrenches, I probably would have stopped making them.
In the end they are super fun though. It's nice to make something like that just to take a break from hunting knives or carving on art knives. Plus who doesn't like cutting their hand while tightening a bolt?
I thought that was pretty cleaver of them.
If lacking skill and creativity, there is always salesmanship and marketing to fall back on. Ain't that right... (Insert your own manufacturer candidates here.)
The wrench knives were meant to grow the knowledge of handmade/custom knives. I had targeted car enthusiast, bikers, mechanics, etc for the bases of that marketing. Decades later, scrubs came out with their thing and they gave it a bump. Like all knives, it depends on the metal the manufacturer uses and how well you are at heat treating.
It doesn't matter if you have the most amazing metal in the world, if you don't know how to heat treat it, then it will always be junk.
I have a patent on the wrench knives and tomahawks, up to the point where I believe Snap-On has their copyrights. I never enforce it, because I think people should be able to make what they want, its still a safe precaution. I am the one that created the snap-on knife design, to an extent. We had a deal going, but that fell through decades ago. The way they got around my copyrights and patents, was putting a blade on a wrench, where mine if one solid piece. lol
I typically fill 5,000 wrench orders a year, with a whole lot pending still. I've never seen it go below that and most people don't mind waiting, as long as they know they are getting what they ordered. Most of the ones that I get are higher grade tool steel, but I do get my wrenches made especially for me now. As long as I order 20k+ they are pretty happy to make it out of whatever I want.
Same with my railroad spikes, horseshoes, rebar, etc. I have most of that custom made now. Mainly to get the quantity that I need in order to fill all my orders. It also helps that I don't have to worry about the steel anymore. Most wrenches that are of quality will tell what the metal is made out of. From there is it on you as a maker to heat treat it properly.
