My semi-real time heat treating thread

That’s the thing about a real high quality custom knife, it is the whole package, not just pretty. There has been no small amount of debate over the role of art in knife making and there is one key stone word that makes custom knives special- “functional”. Functional art is a slightly different beast than other art. I just returned from a trip that allowed me to spend a day at the National Art Gallery enjoying the work of Rembrandt, Titian, Degas, Vermeer, Leonardo, etc. … and I kept coming back to how different functional art is from the work of those masters. Their function was to stop me dead in my tracks and cause my mind to shift gears to deal with the visual tsunami before me.

A very well made art knife can do the same, but in the end it still has to be an effective cutting tool to be a knife. Too many seem to easily forget this basic truth. More than once I have heard somebody mention that their favorite maker does something that is completely counterproductive to a quality cutting tool and then show an image of a well finished blade and proclaim “but you can’t argue with these results.” What results? So the guy makes a pretty knife; if the edge folds or practically crumbles in use it should probably be framed and labeled “art”, but not functional.

Two guys make knives, one chooses the wrong steel and has no idea how to heat treat it but he has training as a jeweler and produces a stunning example of metal working. The other gets the right steel and nails the heat treatment and then spends his time getting the geometry just right for cutting, but has no skill in finishing, the result looks like a seven year old finished it with an angle grinder, but it cuts like crazy. Which one is the knife? Which one do you want to buy? Many people will have different answers to those questions.


Excellent post! I like how you tied this to art, specifically functional art. Your post reminds me of my visit to the Vatican. The artwork is beyond mind blowing even in the passageways. The Sistine Chapel, St. Peter's Basilica- stone carving and fresco work done by true masters of which no camera's reproduction can do justice. Awe inspiring is the best my vocabulary can express.

Your point about art knives resonates with me. At what point does functionality, or lack thereof, figure into the definition of "knife" versus "art"? To be quite honest, a huge number of collectable knives are sold which will probably never be anything other than a display, should they even leave the safe. I don't only mean gilded and gold inlayed daggers with jade handles- I'm talking about many of the bowies we see. If the knife is functionally a wall hanger, I wonder if many of them are even heat treated for any reason other than producing the hamon. I don't mean that as an attack on the maker either- if the function of the knife is purely aesthetic then I'm not even sure it's a negative based on the original intent of the maker. For all intents and purposes they are museum pieces by nature.

I am very practical minded by nature. Even if I were a millionaire I'd drive a truck. (a nice one!) But I can appreciate the workmanship in a museum piece, even one that is only representative of a working knife. In fact, were I to craft a museum grade knife I'd probably destroy any value it had by making errant scratches when I did the sharpening.
 
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