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Old 02-26-2013, 10:43 AM
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rockhound rockhound is offline
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Join Date: Jun 2012
Location: Winter Park, CO
Posts: 366
Detail Filing VS Function

I very much enjoy doing detail file work and it was one of the things that initially attracted me to the world of knifemaking.
Now... after making several knives and learning a lot along the way... I'm far more interested in functional aspects rather than artistic, although they go hand-in-hand with skilled and savvy makers.
I've come to the conclusion that detail filing certainly has it's place, primarily as an embellishment and for display knives. I love display knives but I would prefer all of my builds to be true workhorses in every respect.
On a full-tang fixed blade knife I don't think there's any crime in embellishing the handle portion of the tang with filework, then filling it with epoxy, etc. If done well I don't think it can cause too much functional grief, but it's still a gamble since epoxy can fail in extreme conditions for a variety of reasons. The same can be said regarding inlays.
File embellishment on the top of the blade or any exposed tang (other than standard thumb-stop straight lines) is out of the question for any working knives that I will be building in the future.

Here's why:
A good friend of mine is an award winning taxidermist... big game, small game, bird, fish, reptile, and museum. He's taught me coldwater fish taxidermy and I'm forever indebted. Knives are his primary tools and he uses them all day/every day. He's extremely good at his trade and amazing to watch.
He asked that I make him a nice caping knife (which I will do at no charge). He's seen my work and likes it. When discussing the details of the project he immediately brought up file embellishment. Bear in mind, he's ONLY interested in function for obvious reasons.

To paraphrase our conversation, it went something like this:
"Me: ...so what exactly do you want in a caping knife?
Kev: first off, none of that fancy file crap
Me: what?? why not, I wanna make something really nice for you and I enjoy doing it
Kev: If you make me a knife with that **** on it, you can keep it. It's a bacteria trap and really tough to keep clean..."


So.... I have to agree with my friend who is a very skilled user and depends on high quality knives for a living. Filework definitely has it's place but not on any of my true workhorses. As much as I like the look and enjoy doing it, it's application is limited in the work arena.

I don't mean for this to be a controversial topic but thought I would share my recent revelation.


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Last edited by rockhound; 02-26-2013 at 10:49 AM.
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