A New Project

This is going to be a more involved knife than usual, mostly because I haven't made one of these before.  It is commonly called a "friction folder," meaning a folding knife that doesn't have a spring or lock mechanism to keep it open, only a friction fit.  This may not sound super safe, but most folding knives for the last thousand years or more have been made this way and it seems to work just fine.

 Here the blade is forged to shape, but the tang isn't even started.  The hot section behind the blade will be the area where I cut the blade loose from the parent bar.

 I've just started shaping the tang in this picture.  It may not look hot, but that steel will burn you.  Blacksmiths will often tell you it isn't the red steel that burns you, it is the black steel.  It looks cold and you just pick it up...

 For what I want to do, I need the tang drawn out to about four inches long.  It is just about right, at this point.

And here's the blade ready for heat treating.  Sketched on the anvil, you can see some of my thoughts about the shape of the tang.  I'm actually very happy with the shape I ended up with.  I think it is quite graceful.

This knife will be my entry into a knife exchange I'm participating in over at the Primitive Archer forums.  It is referred to as a "kith," which stands for Knife In The Hat, I believe.

The finished knife will not have as much surface ugly as it has in the above picture, but I will leave some of the forged surface intact.  For me, part of the joy of bladesmithing is creating a knife that tells you its story.  A forged knife that has been ground down to clean steel may as well not have been hand forged at all, as far as aesthetics are concerned.  This knife will not be super rustic, but it will certainly tell a bit of its story to those who are interested in it.

In a future entry, I will show the next steps in creating what I hope will be a really cool knife.  Or I might ruin it and have to instead show you how a knife can go wrong.  I'll try to get it done soon and share it here!