Haven't done much in the knife shop for the past 3 months, got to be more work than fun and considering how little I make off of it I needed to step aside for a bit. But lately new ideas and blade designs have pushed me back into the shop, aka wife's side of the garage

Frustration can be solved several ways, one is shootin' big bores, that will clean out the cob webs, another is knife forging.....good ole hammer beatin' on a piece of hot metal on a anvil. One of the things I have wanted to do is get better at forging but also to forge an integral bolster knife, I have tried it a few times, really hard, so many things to remember and do while swinging a 3 lbs hammer hard to hit a small area at the right angle, did manage to make a decent one the other day......as forged-

and after a little clean up on the belt grinder....

In between heats on it I ran some normalizing cycles on some fresh blanks I had ground out...

And a couple new designs, a 6" camp knife and something I call the Dragon.....

And yes, running a 2x72" 60 grit ceramic belt as fast as the grinder runs is a little scary and if you blink while operating it, they WILL bite you.....

This was only a glancing hit for a 10th of a second, but they will open you up quickly.

Gunner

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https://www.instagram.com/41gunner/
41 Mags rule, Baers rock!

You need to get rid of them now and then.

Interesting work with the forging. That camp blade looks like a real useful shape as well.

Very nice looking work as usual. I can certainly understand having to step away from things and not making much money. Have been told many times that if you are an artist/craftsman and doing it for the money, you should find something else to do. You have to do it for the love of doing it, whether there is any money or not. A few will find enough money to live off, and a very rare few will figure out how to make a very good living, but if you don't love doing it for it's own sake, the chance of ever seeing any money is extremely small.