Thanks for the kind words Tom, Jack and GT.
A little while ago in this thread, Greg (WhittlinAway) showed an interesting sloyd knife, with a familiar looking blade profile.
Jack thought not, discounting those distant cousins of the Lambsfoot in blade shape and handle orientation, the leatherworkers' 'boot knife'.
Nonetheless, I'd idly wondered before, once, as to what a small utility fixed blade might be like, which recreated the lines and form, and useful size in hand of the Lambsfoot pattern.
Then, earlier this month, at the Australian Knifemakers Guild annual expo in Melbourne, I was chatting to custom maker Christian Mathieson. In the course of the conversation, I mentioned I had some Sambar deer antlers in the shed, and ended up swapping a couple of sets for a two day lesson in knifemaking in Christian's fully equipped custom shop.
These were my initial sketches for a lightweight 3" hiking and outdoor knife concept, which would also work well as a craftsperson's high performance utility blade, or kitchen parer.
From top to bottom, these started off as tracings of my Golden Ox-horn Lambsfoot; my current favourite workhorse EDC: the Wright ebony Lambsfoot; and lastly, the classic, century old Unity Lambsfoot.
I then started playing with angles and the flow of the lines a bit, with a view to distilling some of the qualities I have most enjoyed in the various Lambsfoots I've been fortunate enough to have used or handled.
You'll notice on the underside of the handle, I accentuated the parallel curve echoing the top side swayback, and added a small forefinger choil area where the kick and bolster would be on a pocket knife. This is so the tip drops slightly below horizontal in a natural sabre grip and will engage and bite into draw cuts very easily.
Roughed out D2 blades:
I promptly ground the tip of one of these too thin on the Radius Master and chewed it up. I was shattered, but Christian was philosophical, saying 'that's how you learn.' He salvaged what he could, and so now I have a fully cryo heat treated and sharpened 'Mule' I can use as a test blade!
We continued on the other blade.
Christian is set up for for liquid nitrogen quenching and deep cryogenic aging during the temper cycles, so the blades went into the first cold cycle at the end of the first day.
(Cryogenic treatment of hypereutectoid steels has been shown to achieve a very beneficial microstucture and carbide refinement, as well as promoting complete martensitic transformation of retained austenite.)
(Continued)
) Hope to return to the quest soon however.
