Sneak peek at new mid-tech fixed blade series

I've been working for a while on developing a line of mid-tech stock removal blades.  I don't usually post work until I'm done, but what the heck.  I'm pleased with how things are going.  :)  It's taken me a while because the approach in making these is so different from my usual forge finished blades, and I want to do them right.

Most of the lineup is based on designs that I have forged before, with a few brand-new.  They are intended to be straightforward working knives that will also serve equally well in a combat role.  Many of my customers are military and law enforcement, and that's who I had in mind while designing the lineup.

All of them are waterjet cut from 3/16" 80CrV2 steel, have tall flat grinds, and have black oxide finishes.  Three of the designs (only one seen today) are intended to have cord-wrapped handles or removable flat handle scales, while the rest get TeroTuf scales riveted with flared stainless steel tubing.  I'm also working on developing standardized tooling for molding Kydex sheaths for them.  While the basic design of the tooling seems good, there is still some tweaking needing done in execution.

All of these shave hair nicely.  :)

First off, what has become my new EDC, a Little Rok.  It's replacing one of my early forged Little Roks that I've carried for several years.  The new version is a much better knife; I've learned since I made that one.  It fits nicely in the tool pocket on the leg of my carpenter jeans.

Next up, the design that I have had ordered the most, my Benghazi Warfighter.  There's definitely been evolution of the design since I made the first six in 2012 and donated them to some Marines, but it's entirely been refinement.  The basic design is pretty darn solid.  A decent number of warfighters in different branches of the service, veterans, and civvies are carrying the forged version of this, and using it for everything from processing deer and feral hogs to chopping down fair-sized hackberry trees.

If you keep an eye on my work, you've seen this mini-parang design in forged form recently.  It was originally one that I forged, traced the blade outline, then turned it into a CAD file with the help of my waterjetter.  Then, a California drug enforcement agent wanted me to forge him a new one, and I used one of my waterjetted blanks as a pattern when forging out his.  And now I finally have a stock removal version ready to go.  One of those "circle of life" kind of things.  :D

And finally, one of the new designs, a wharncliff.  You can see on this one that my stamped touchmark got ground away.  I wasn't thinking about that happening until after I was already stamping and normalizing.  I quickly got an electro-etcher kit.  Now to try it out and get that process down too.

By hook or by crook I intend to have at least some of the new lineup on my table at the Blade Show come June.  Don't know that the full lineup will be ready by then, but hopefully most of it.  And, of course, tomahawks and forged work.

Busy, busy

Haven't posted a whole lot lately, but that doesn't mean things haven't been hopping around here.  :)

Spring is here!  The hills around the shop are filled with bluebonnets, sweet Williams, Indian paintbrushes, wild onions, etc.  This picture doesn't do it justice.

A whole passel of tomahawks

I've been kind of remiss in posting up the tomahawks that have left my shop.  Here's some of 'em.

15" War Chief, sharpened inner beard, TeroTuf handles.

12" Wrecker, sharpened inner beard, Micarta handles.

The pair of them in comparison, with a Benghazi Warfighter to boot.

A pair of 12" War Chiefs with TeroTuf.  They weren't going to the same customer, but I thought that made a nice shot of them.  :)

A 15" Wrecker with tan Durabake and black TeroTuf.

A 12" Woodsman, sharpened inner beard, in olive drab.

A 15" Wrecker.

An 18" War Chief, sharpened inner beard, in olive drab.

An 18" Woodsman.

And finally, a 15" War chief, sharpened inner beard, in black.

Whew!  That's a lot of work!  Still more I'll post later.

Neo-Tribal / Primal/Tactical 'hawk and knife combo

This pair was ordered up by a customer who had previously bought an 18" Wrecker tomahawk from me and has used it quite a bit.  He wanted a matching 'hawk and knife with cord wrapped handles.

The 'hawk is the more "neo" of the pair, a 15" War Chief in 1/4" 4140, with the top and bottom rivet holes left exposed to allow for lanyard options.  The knife is forged from 1/4" x 1 1/4" 80CrV2, with a 7" blade and a false edge on the clip.  Both have hemp-over-leather handle wraps and black oxide finish on the steel.  There is a leather slab on either side of the tang underneath the hemp to bulk up the handle.  The edges on the leather were heavily beveled prior to wrapping to keep the corners of the handle from being too square.  Three strand Turk's head knots in black round leather lace cover the ends of the wrap, and the whole wrap is impregnated with marine epoxy.  The customer will be making his own sheaths.

Tomahawk destructive/abusive testing

The question came up on a forum whether I had ever managed to bend, break, or seriously damage one of my 'hawks.  Here was my response:

I have a customer who has beat the absolute crap out of his 18" War Chief.  Here's what he said:

"What a performer!! This thing took everything we dished at it for over an hour and came out intact and meaner than hell.  It chewed through various parts of a Chevy Silverado 1500 door.  A heavy, thick ceramic kitchen sink.  A padlock.  Concrete blocks and bricks.  Wood.  Pig/cow bones purchased for dog chews.  I can't even remember what else.  The only thing that slowed it down, and chipped it, was taking on 1/4 thick steel hinges on that door.  Had we kept at it, the hawk would have won.  I am blown away and so happy with the construction of this hawk, James.  It is built do everything I wanted it to do, and testing it out first hand was such a pleasure.

I got her sharpened back up, and I love the look of a new grind to the blade and tons of war scars."

And the pictures he took:

I asked him about what seemed to damage the spike and he said:

"I believe there was a section of the truck door that had thicker steel tubing running below the exterior sheet of steel that chipped off the tip of the beard and flattened the spike out a bit. The ceramic sink may have aided in that too- I can't remember- all I remember is that it was early on and then very little else affected the hawk after that :).

I took it to a shop here in town and had it professionally sharpened. "

More recently, " I'm still using it to clear out some of this shower floor, which is a weird concrete-mixture- It's this light brown/pink layer of "stuff" that held 100s of small stones in place- it's hard, but when struck crumbles and chips and everything. The hawk has been taking 1000s of direct blows into that as well as a lot of hits into these rocks."  He finally did enough damage to the spike that he took it back to the same shop and had them reshape the spike.

He's still quite happy with it and looking at buying another 'hawk from me.

This is the most abuse I know of one of my 'hawks taking, and I'm morbidly pleased with the outcome.  Though built for wood chopping, it withstood far more rigorous cutting without any kind of catastrophic failure and was able to be brought back to a working edge without major reshaping.  The spike, a sharply pointed weapon, took damage from the abuse without snapping off and remained functional through it.

That's not a bad new shape to it, either, and would still knock a pretty good hole in a bad guy's skull.  :D

Tactical tomahawk destructive testing video

I finally got video edited together and uploaded showing my tactical 'hawks' various configurations and then doing some testing with them. 

It's fairly thorough and therefore long.  If you'd like to skip ahead to different sections, here's how it's divided up:

Design and Options - 1:22
Sheaths - 13:52
Cutting Wood - 22:57
Destructive Testing - 28:37

More video later.

15" tomahawks debut

I got back from the Usual Suspect Network Gathering show in Las Vegas a couple of days ago, where I debuted the new 15" 'hawks.  I was working right down to the last minute to get everything done that I could before the show, so I left Texas without being able to take any pictures first.

My lovely wife helped drive, watch the table, and generally make the show more fun.  God bless her patience!

I think this was the first time that tomahawks outnumbered forged blades on my table.

The 15" 'hawks lined up on the left corner.  From the left: Wrecker, War Chief, and Woodsman.

The three sizes of Wrecker lined up together: 18", 15", and 12".

The Woodsman sold at the show, so this is the only picture I have of it finished up.

I got pictures today of the two 15"ers that made it back.  The War Chief went without a sheath, which I will see about getting built in the next few days.  The Kydex is already molded, I just ran out of time to get it trimmed and assembled.

And the Wrecker, which did get a sheath in time.

As the 15" versions are the second generation of the tomahawks, there are a few changes other than just the length.  The most obvious is that there are now five rivet holes instead of three.  The rivets are also smaller diameter tubing, though with the same wall thickness.  So they are just as strong as the larger rivets, but have less handle material removed to accommodate them.  It's also still big enough to run paracord through for lanyard options.

The handle material is a new one for me as well.  It's a composite called Tero Tuf that is similar in concept and texture to canvas Micarta, but is actually tougher and as a bonus is less toxic to work with in the shop.  I like my lungs, so that's much appreciated!

These changes will be implemented into the 18" and 12" versions as well as the blanks that are already cut get used up and the new second generation blanks are cut out.