Knife #27 - Redwood Burl Fighter

Erin Burke

Erin Burke

Well-Known Member
Knife #27 - Toasted Redwood Burl Fighter

{cross-posted with BF}

Good morning dogs. It's been awhile since I've posted here.

This knife has been almost done for the better part of a month, but I finally got around to finishing the sheath and taking (last minute) photos on Monday night. The inspiration for this fighter came from a joint project between Joe Paranee and Nick Wheeler that played out over on BF. I was very-much intrigued by idea of a thick-bladed fighter with aggressive distal taper... so that's the direction that I took with this one. It is the first knife I've done where I started as thick as 1/4" at the guard. I'm happy with the results.

Some Stats:
Length: 14-1/8"
Blade: 8-7/16" (tip to choil) - the clip is sharp.
Steel: Differentially heat-treated W2 from Aldo, Flat-Ground
Handle: Stabilized and "toasted" metallic flash Redwood from Mark at Burl Source
Guard: 416SS with black G10 and Copper spacers

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My Dad is the youngest of 13 siblings and grew up near the small town of Wawota, Saskatchewan. He came to me a few months back requesting that I build a knife for one of his older brothers who will be turning 80 years old this summer. Dad didn't have many requirements except, "make a good one so I can brag about it." :D I hope that this does the trick.

Right now I have Ernie Grospitch working on a custom stencil... edited multiple times to meet my Dad's aesthetic requirements ("No... use a SANS SERIF font.") Here's a mockup of the approved stencil. ;)

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Just a couple additional comments. First, this knife has a nice active hamon... I just didn't capture it in this image. I hope to have time to take additional photos once the stencil etching is done. Second, I'm really happy with the results of "toasting" the redwood. This probably isn't the most common toasting recipe out there... but I dissolved a bit of steel wool in some FeCl, and swabbed the resultant onto the wood. I followed this up with a light toasting with the torch followed by a final rub-down with steel wool. Finally, I went through my old-reliable tung-oil finish routine. It's difficult to see from the static photo, but, in addition to darkening the wood, this process also brought out more of the flash-n-sparkle in Mark's wood.

This is how the redwood was colored before toasting.
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Thanks for looking.

Erin
 
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Erin,
I' d say you nailed it!!!!!! Just beautiful!!! Please continue with the process you did on the wood!!! It is very interesting
I think Dad will be bragging a while!!! Thanks for sharing!!!!!! Rex
Btw, ain't it time for another W I P?
 
Very cool knife Erin.
I like what you did with the ferric on the handle.
Now you need to try ferric with copper on a blonde colored wood.
 
Burl Source said:
Very cool knife Erin.
I like what you did with the ferric on the handle.
Now you need to try ferric with copper on a blonde colored wood.
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I think that the next one up for me will be a little hunter with some of that 5k year old bog oak... but I'll put ferric and copper on my list of things-to-do. I may even have some blondish maple burl lying around. :biggrin:


McClellan Made Blades said:
Btw, ain't it time for another W I P?
Click to expand...

Hey Rex... the more knives I make, the more I realize that I'm not doing anything that somebody else isn't already doing better than me. :3: Makes me a lot more reticent to bog people down with my WIPs when there are so many other GREAT threads out there these days.
That being said, I may throw a WIP together when I build my first frame-lock folder -- you know -- just for a comedic break. :biggrin:

Erin
 
Karl B. Andersen said:
I like the ricasso-less look. Very clean.
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Thanks Karl. These days, most of my knives don't have an official flat ricasso. It's a bit more work fitting up the guard, but a lot less work at the plunges. :3:

Scott Davidson said:
A fine looking knife sir. Is it a take down.
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Scott, it's not a take-down... it's a hidden-tang bedded in Acraglas with a single 1/8" SS domed pin. It is difficult to see in the photo, but the redwood handle does sit slightly proud of the rear of the guard (approximately the thickness of one wrap of black electrical tape :34:)... a trick that I learned from the really good makers to allow for slight shrinkage in the handle without having the sharp/square corner of the guard protrude past the wood.
 
Erin Burke said:
Hey Rex... the more knives I make, the more I realize that I'm not doing anything that somebody else isn't already doing better than me. :3: Makes me a lot more reticent to bog people down with my WIPs when there are so many other GREAT threads out there these days.
That being said, I may throw a WIP together when I build my first frame-lock folder -- you know -- just for a comedic break. :biggrin:

Erin
Click to expand...

Erin,

I really enjoy your WIPs and appreciate the time and effort it takes to do.
 
WOW, that is a great knife, nice clean lines, like the way you did the back bone, also like the absence of the ricasso, nice work. Deane
 
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