A few months ago I shipped my “little grunt” knife out to a paratrooper from the 173D Airborne Brigade, and at that time I also informed him that, whether he liked it or not, I had enlisted him as my official field tester. Since then he has found ample opportunity to carry and use the knife in the field – in fact, he’s out on a training mission in Germany as I write this – and I’m pleased to report that he has been very happy with the knife’s performance. He has also provided me with extensive and valuable feedback, much of which I am incorporating in a new knife that I’m finishing up for him right now. This new knife will be his official deployment knife when he ships out into the warzone next year and I will post pictures of it in a few days when it’s complete. In the meantime, here’s a little teaser pic.

A few of the other soldiers in the unit have also contacted me requesting deployment knives. One of the soldiers - we’ll call him SGT H. – asked me to build him a knife that will serve him both on the battlefield and out in the woods in his home state of Kentucky. In addition to being a paratrooper, SGT H. is a skilled bowhunter, which is another activity where a good knife is essential to have. He requested a mid-sized knife with a comfortable, ergonomic handle and an as-forged finish on the blade, so, after we exchanged a few emails discussing various other design elements I sent him a sketch, which he then approved. Yesterday I started forging.

I brought my camera out to the shop and snapped a few photos along the way so that SGT H. could get a glimpse of the actual process and some of the various steps involved in making his custom hand forged knife. So I figured I might as well publish the pictures here on on Dick’s Workshop as well. So here it goes, on the techniques page under “The Shop”, right  here…

Here’s a knife I just finished. I gave this one a nice smooth 600-grit hand-rubbed finish on the blade so it would look a bit cleaner than some of the simple belt-finished knives I’ve made lately. Hand-rubbing is slow and tedious work but it does look nice when it’s done well. Strangely enough, however, when I told the wifey I was headed out to the shop to rub one out the other night, she looked at my kinda funny, then just rolled her eyes and walked away. I guess she prefers a belt finish…

The handle on this one is made out of bone micarta scales held on with epoxy and slightly flared stainless steel thong hole tubing. You don’t even want to know what the wife said when I started talking about my thong hole.

The flats and edges still retain a forge finish and provide a nice contrast, both in color and texture, to the hand-rubbed blade. Forged from 1/4″ 1084 carbon steel, the thinly ground blade is 5″ long and the overall knife is just shy of 10″.  This one’s quite pointy, and VERY sharp. Much like my wife….

The barbecue is a man’s sacred domain, a place where he cooks his kill so that he may eat and feed his family. It is not something to be taken lightly or trifled with in any way. It is basic. It is essential. It is serious business.

So of course when a man places fresh meat upon the fire he likes to have good tools available to ensure efficient and proper cooking of said meat. This is where a good barbecue fork comes into play. It must be sturdy, strong, and pointy. It must be capable not only of moving the meat around on the grill but also of chasing away and possibly killing scavengers and other potential threats. So when a friend recently invited me over for a barbecue, I decided to make him a proper barbecue / battle-fork.

He seemed to like it. Sadly I didn’t get a great picture before he picked it up and chased me away with it, but perhaps I’ll make another one for myself and post a new photo then. In the meantime, happy killin and grillin, Johnny!

Here’s one of my little side projects finally coming to fruition. A new heat treat forge that I designed and built in order to gain better control over temperature and atmosphere during the critical heat treatment stage. 

See, the thing about heat treating is that if you do it well, then good for you, you’ve done your job, but if you do it poorly, you render your product inferior at best, or downright dangerous at worst. Heaven forbid someone have a blade fail them in a critical situation.

So I built this thing. The burner assembly has eight separate burners so that I can produce a more even heat distribution within the chamber. Just above the chamber is a baffle that a made out of some insulative ceramic fiber board, upon which I can place the knife while I wait for it to get up to austenizing temperature. The baffle also helps deflect the flames away from the knife, once again to more evenly distribute the heat throughout the chamber. Insulation is just some basic 8# density ceramic fiber blanket. The working depth of this heat treating forge is about 30″, so it will be able to handle some bigger blades. 

Here’s a shot of the burner assebly before I installed it in the forge body

Pretty cool, right? Next steps are to assemble a front door for this thing, and then wire up and install a thermocouple so I can get accurate temperature readings. My ability to judge heat by color is only accurate to +/- 6 degrees fahrenheit and I need single degree accuracy dammit!

Anyway, I gave it its first test run the other day and it performed great. I will post pics of the test subject when it’s completed in the next few days.

My latest military knife is now officially en route to its new owner, who plans to carry it on his next deployment. He currently serves with the 173D Airborne Brigade which, according to military experts, is fucking BADASS (please excuse the technical term).

I rigged up a leather sheath that will be compatible with MOLLE gear so he can wear it on his chest rig. Here’s a shot of the front -

And here’s the backside, which shows the MOLLE compatible button strap.

Hopefully the knife will arrive at its destination in a few short days, at which point its service shall officially commence. Although my man Nick doesn’t know it yet, he has been selected as my official field tester and will hopefully report back with his impressions postehaste.

Godspeed, brother.