Hi From Brisbane, QLD Au

[SLAiN]

Hi everyone, my names Matt. I,m from south east Queensland Australia.
I'm a Hobbie knife maker, I'v made a few knives now as well as some spear tips and matchete's, I collected knives as a kid, wich is how I eventualy got into makeing them, I'm hopeing one day that I'll have the time to go fulltime.

I tend to mainly hand forge my knives but i have made a few stock removal Blades also ... I tend not to bye bar stock but rather bash one out of a coil spring or i'll use leaf springs or old files ect.

I'v uploaded a picture of one of my most recent knives... It is made from 5160, brass and red morrell burl... unfortunantly I sent this one away to a freind in Florida and it didnt make it, it was lost in the mail and all that my freind got was an empty package...

This knife I'v now classed as MIA.

 

[SDS]

Welcome to Knifedogs. Sorry to hear about the lost knife. That stinks.

If you have any pictures of your other projects I'd love to see those. The spear tips sound particularly interesting.

SDS

 

[JAWilliams]

Welcome and thanks for sharing the pic.

 

[Billy Helton]

Welcome

 

[Johnny Roberts]

Welcome! I have lost a knife in the mail too. Heartbreaking when you have put so much effort into it.

 

[Beo-wulf]

Howdy and welcome!

 

[SLAiN]

Thanks everyone.... looks like a good forum so far, lots of tallented knife makers from what i'v seen... I'v got some pictures hear of a couple of my older knives, the little knife next to the bowie was the first knife i ever made...

It has a hickory and ironbark handle and the blade is some random stainless material...

I made the bowie about 2 years ago, It's forged out of coil spring and has a brass and western myall handel... the western myall is from Western Australia and is exeptionally hard stuff, it's been polished with pale cooked linseed oil.

The the other knife is forged 5160, nickel silver and york gum burl... it was the first in that style that i made... the one i lost in the mail was the same design.

Gotta dig around in my hard drive for more pics i'v lost them...

 

[SLAiN]

Welcome to Knifedogs. Sorry to hear about the lost knife. That stinks.

If you have any pictures of your other projects I'd love to see those. The spear tips sound particularly interesting.

SDS

Hi SDS, the spear tips are basically like a small dagger blade, double edged, and sometimes with barbs in the edges. some local aboriginal guys bought about 10 of them from me... well they bought 5 of them and swaped me some fish for the rest... lol... (Wich I thought wasnt a bad deal anyway)

The barbed tips are for spear fishing where as the plain tips where for hunting...

traditionaly they would be useing tips made from hardwood, stingray spikes ect.... they told me they where sick of breaking there tips and wanted something that would last.

I made them from old weel braces, which are basicaly 5160 or similar... they havent been back for more yet and it's been over 12 months, so i,m guessing those tips have lasted them a wile...

spear tips should be temperd "allmost" like a spring, as they can hit there target with quite a lot of force, and in the case of Australian animals they will be jumping around a lot with the spear stuck in them, so it helps if the tip can flex a bit.

Most of my tips where about 8 inches long 0.75inches across and about 3mm thick, 2 and a half inches from the length is used for a tang... 2 holes are drilled into the tang for pins, but i dont think they pinned them onto the shafts... they use a resin that comes from the roots of iron bark trees to hold them in.... surprizingly that stuff is realy strong and i,v been thinking about useing it for my next hidden tang knife but i,ll use pins as well.

unfortunantly i have no pictures for you... but i,ll make one up soon and get some pics of it.

 

[SLAiN]

found somthing more recent to show ya's... this is i large knife that me and my mate Grant made... grant wanted a knife like the one in the game assasins creed... it's made from 5160 and we had a little help from a freinds 20 ton air hydrolic press to form the tang... other than that it,s all hand forged...

since these photo,s where taken, Grant has put it on his grinder and polished it up... he's still undicided as to put scales on the handel or cord wrap it... i,ll get a picture of the end product soon.

there's my forge in the background as well... i use coke in that one... and grant is the big fella with the tattoos.

 

[BossDog]

g'day mate, welcome to KnifeDogs.
t