RVA

Knifemaking: gentleness, boundaries, and the Maiden

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“I was only fifteen years old and full of fire
I was a half a pound of bacon and an egg on the side
She got all the good looks, and I got all the war
She was everything I asked for, and a little more”

Francis Dunnery, Give Up and Let it Go (The Gulley Flats Boys)

This blade was a commission from a very good friend of mine.  I’ve known him and his wife for quite a few years, worked for his company, and spent much time with his family.  He lives in Maidens, Virginia, so coming up with an idea for this blade sort of took care of itself.

The inspiration for the Maiden comes from most all of the women I am close to.  Elegant, beautiful, strong, full of love, and most definitely not having any of your shit.  Or put another way, immaculately clothed but with a sword hidden beneath beneath their cloak.  Or sun dress.  Or whatever houndstooth scarf or coat is in season.  You get the idea.

No man is an island.  Sometimes it’s really healthy to have someone to tell you “hey, see that stupid thing you’re about to do?  Maybe think twice about that- you don’t need to impress anyone.” Or,

“Hey, it’s time to stand on your own feet.  No, I’m not going to carry you through this.  Don’t worry, you’ve got this.”  Or even,

“Whether you fail or succeed, I love you.”

These are strong statements but they are held by a gentleness that we don’t often give ourselves, or at least I don’t.  I’ve been known to on occasion, when left to my own devices, done that stupid thing to impress someone insignificant and not stood on my own feet and felt like love was conditional on whether I failed or succeeded.  Because whether we like it or not, at some point or another we all have moments of neediness and insecurity, self-doubt and self-sabotage, and the story-hour from hell where we ruminate on our screw-ups.  As social creatures it’s important to hear these things from others close to us.  This doesn’t necessarily mean there are dependency issues at play.  It means that we are human.  And whether we are aware of it or not, we are often giving the same support to those who help support us.

To me, these statements also represent strong boundaries- saying what is felt without expectation or condition.  Without (or in spite of) fear of a negative reaction.  Spoken not to coerce or manipulate an outcome but to help us to be ourselves.

That is the lesson of the Maiden- an elegant tool that is close in good times and the rougher times, beautifully dressed with no fucks to give.  I’ll drink to that….

I designed four of these lovely ladies and had my friend pick which on he liked best.  These three didn’t quite make the cut and that’s ok.  I went with a drop point blade- the right balance of tip strength, belly, and piercing ability.  Good for farm work.

  finish sanding

The Maiden: 1095 spring steel with an acid etch, Curly Maple handle, and brass hardware.

  

I also made her a sheath.  Wet formed for a snug fit.


I actually made two of these- in case I screwed up the finish on the Curly Maple.  This is the first one, with a satin finish.

Knifemaking: not taking things personally and the Persuader

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“A true warrior can only serve others, not himself…When you become a mercenary, you’re just a bully with a gun.”

Evan Wright, Generation Kill

In the last semester or so of college I got a job building stages for a small production company.  When I say small, it was one gentleman who kept everything in his garage and had a box truck older than I was with no air conditioning.  Everything was rough and tumble.  Most of the jobs were second-rate: fashion shows at dilapidated event halls, seedy parties, Cinco de Mayo celebrations, weddings out in the boondocks, and community events in some of the rougher parts of town (for these I was told to carry a ‘stunt wallet’- a cheap velcro wallet with nothing but my ID and 5 or 6 bucks in it, in case we got mugged)  The biggest job he had was once a year at a county fair.  We would build a large stage, maybe 60ft by 30ft.  Then we set up 40ft by 20ft event tent on top of it.  The headlining act was an Elvis impersonator from North Carolina and for a county fair he could really draw the crowds.

These particular tents are a bit tricky.  They require at least four fit people to set up.  They are the sort of contraptions where there is a one right way to set it up and a thousand stupid ways to set it up.  There’s no in between.  There are several dozen aluminum poles ranging from 8 to 20ft.  They connect to form the frame through a series of elbow joints secured in place with cotter pins.  After you put the frame together, you ‘skin’ it with a weather treated canvas.  It’s all heavy as shit.

Invariably when you are putting the frame together some of the cotter pins won’t go in because the rivet holes in the poles won’t line up with elbow joints, usually due to uneven ground.  This was to be expected.  On these occasions we would bring out the Persuader.

The Persuader was an aptly-named baby sledge hammer for helping those cotter pins to go through the holes.  We weren’t trying to beat anything into submission or make anything do something it wasn’t meant to do.  There was no intimidation, no malice, nothing like that.  Sometimes things don’t quite go together as they were designed and in those instances they might need a bit of persuasion…of the forceful variety.

I find this when I get to the end of a project where there is something I’ve built and it’s almost finished but something isn’t quite going together as I had planned.  Do I start over?  Do I give up?  What usually happens is I percolate a cranky funk and try to wish it into submission.  Alas, wishing does not make it so….

This is where the lesson of the Persuader comes in.  The idea of helping something to do what it does.  Of taking action, manifesting intention, of letting go of the idea that things have to be perfect.  Sometimes I find myself so wrapped up in a project that when something doesn’t work I take it personally.  When that happens the project becomes about me instead of the idea I am trying to honor and serve.  When the cotter pins of Life won’t go through the rivet holes for which they were designed…give them a tap with the Persuader.  Not out of anger or frustration, but love taps.

It is from this place that I designed the Persuader blade.  Something you can pull out when you know where you want to end up but have challenges in your way.  When frustrations and doubts may close your heart.  When the goddamn cotter pin won’t go through the stupid rivet hole and the Elvis impersonator won’t have his tent and the sun melts his pomade and he can’t sing….right, deep breaths…everything is there, it just needs a little persuasion.

This blade started with a bar of 1095 spring steel.  I wanted something utilitarian, yet elegant.  For maximum blade strength and cutting ability I ground a sabre grind on the cutting edge.  For extra cutting utility I made a chisel grind on the top of the blade.

  Sabre grinds are difficult to do well.  I used my cheap little Chinese belt grinder as much as I could and then I evened it out on my filing jig.

  After heat treat and tempering….After lots of cleaning up and finishing work…

  
Some ornamental filework..,

  brass spacers and Sapele Mahogany
    Chisel grind up front…

 When it gets tough, go ahead and get frustrated and take it personally.  When you’re through with that, grab the Persuader.

  …now to clean all of this up…

Knifemaking: finding your home, braving the elements, and the Northerner

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“A farm of your own is better, even if small. Everyone’s someone at home.”

Hávamál, st. 36

Home is what you make it.  The first thing I do when I go into anybody’s home is notice how it smells.  There are many things that can be inferred this way.  It may smell of cooking and spices, a fireplace, clean linens, pets, Murphy’s oil soap, and the people who live there.  All these things are things of love, cultivated in a place where the person who lives there can just come and be.  It’s a safe place where we can take off whatever armor we may wear during the day.  It’s a refuge that shields us from the elements in our lives.

Some brave harsher elements than others.  And in the times we live in, the elements are no longer relegated to heavy rains, freezing blizzards, or lands parched with drought.  They are deadlines for work, the threat of unemployment, passive-aggressive emails, fruitless battles with the DMV, quarterly tax estimations, health insurance premiums, our police executing citizens without arrest or trial, politicians stripping us of our civil liberties and thousands of other things we have little control over.

This can send our stress through the roof and it’s a small wonder.  From an evolutionary standpoint our reactions to stressors were designed to help keep us safe and alive.  You see a bear, you react appropriately by stressing out hard and in turn releasing enough adrenaline to haul ass out of that situation. Then you calm down, throw some logs on the fire and snuggle up with the misses.  Or the mister.  But these days unrelenting stress can lead to unhealthy anxiety and this in turn often leads to depression, ultimately leading to feelings of being stuck and health issues.  Depression and anxiety have their evolutionary purposes but I feel their effects been blown way out of proportion by the amount stimulation and unnecessary stress in today’s world.

This is why it’s important to have a home.  A place where the elements won’t creep in.  This may take some work.  An inspiration for me is John Wemmick from Dickens’ Great Expectations.  He has an unpleasant job, deals with many stressors but goes home to his castle, a safe and gentle refuge he has built for himself.

Throughout history and literature the people from the northern areas are by nature a people more hardened to the elements.  They are a people capable of great acceptance, aware that they can’t change the elements but instead find a way to thrive within them.  That is the inspiration for this blade.

I had to do a bit of research on blade shapes and functions.  I wanted to make something that would aid a modern day Northerner in his outdoor tasks.  This blade is loosely based on a composite of bushcraft designs.  It is a drop point blade with a partial saber grind.  I tried to find a balance between having a deep enough belly for slicing and having enough of a point for effective piercing.  I am rather fond of the O1 tool steel.  It is relatively easy to work with and hardens up beautifully.  it takes a keen edge and is forgiving of my mistakes.

 Cut and profiled

And the grind.  A little bit at a time… 

 

Ground and sanded.  The larger holes help to lighten the blade. 

Wet sanding after heat treat.  I have been using WD-40.  It won’t rust and I find it gives a smoother finish. 

I went to a lumber mill to try to find some more exotic wood.  It was awesome. 

I found a beautiful piece of quarter sawn white oak.  It is sawn in such a way that gives it more stability and shows the grain more beautifully.  Here is a lovely video on the process and how it affects the grain.

Handle work: brass rivets that I bevelled and the oak shaped and rough sanded.     After much more sanding….  A dark shade of Danish oil

  The Northerner

The grain is stunning.
  A fabulous backside is always a bonus….

Edge detail….

There will always be things in our life that will challenge us and create stress.  As long as we have a place we can go, whether bricks or mortar or built within ourselves, we will always be able to brave the elements.  This is the lesson of the Northerner.