First Knife

Well, okay, here is my very first knife. blade is just over 1" long. Told ya I was ashamed, but it's also great to see how far we have come.

OK, Terry, here are two of my firsts. The folder is my first liner lock. The handle is aluminum with a home made pocket clip and a 1095 blade tempered in a BBQ pit. The action is surprisingly good.

The fixed blade (also 1095) was ground (?) on a bench grinder and hardened in a camp fire. As knives go, this one is a fairly good club.

Oh, the humiliation...

All right Don, hey that knife don't look bad, better than mine. This is the kind of thing I would like to see from some other makers and to help get a point across to everyone just starting out. Some of the pics you see are our very first and made with very limited tools and or knowledge about knifemaking, speaking for myself on the latter. As far as eguipment goes it really don't take much,only the desire to make a knife. Every time I make a knife and go oops, I just remember my first knife and then get to thinking that little slip I just made really ain't all that bad. We all start out somewhere, with the internet as it is today and the knifemakers more than willing to share information, its just a click away, all you have to do is ask. Knifemaking is a learning process that never ends and there is a saying that I strongly beleive in. Learn from the other guys mistakes because you aint gonna live long enough to make em all yourself. Come on you guys get some of thos first knife pics up there.

he he :evil: I like that fixed blade Ray, thats what i would call a war horse :

You guy's are killing me ...

I need to grab these images and hold them up for future blackmail purposes.

Alex

Heres the first Linerlock I made..



I'm going to try and find a scan of my first knife..

Boy's ...

Check out that 18K gold thumb stud on that bad boy! Maker's mark too!

Alex

Eric thats a great looking knife, cant wait to see your first fixed blade.

ok Please don?t show these around!

Here is my first fixed blade. Its about 12 years since I made this one. My Dad has it hanging in his office.



Here is my first (and only so far) forlder. Made it about 2-3 years ago.

Jens,
Those look great!

Oh, by the way, what do you mean by, "Please don't show these around"? We've had about 19,469 visits as of this moment. :

oh no Really???

All right, Eric!

Luckily I don't have a photo of my first efforts. It was ground out of a large file. I didn't know there was a knifemaking rennaisance happening. It was 1974 and I was in high school and just goofing off. It was a huge knife with a stag handle. I didn't know how to go about doing a guard or a buttcap so I glued some rabbit fur on it to cover up the ends of the stag. Butt ugly would be putting it mildly. I sold it for 20 bucks though. I sure am glad I didn't know how to put my name on it. As soon as you see what others can do it inspires you to try harder and to take more chances. It's not competition really. It's inspiration. I didn't see a knife magazine until the 80s. I was just making knives for 20 and 30 bucks before that. When I saw what was possible it changed everything. Suddenly I wasn't satisfied with what I was doing with my knives and I knuckled down out of embarrassment more than anything. Funny how seeing other peoples work did that for me. Its kind of odd to me that what inspired me to try harder didnt inspire me to do what they were doing. Whatever. Im just glad I found the inspiration. I remember some of the first photos I saw that really wowed me was of Scagel's work. Kind of wierd huh? His work wouldn't pass the standards of collectors if he was new to the market today but they still make me tingle. I can't put my finger on why.

Weird, no not in the least. Seeing other peoples work does the same thing to me. Cooper was proably the biggest influnce in my life, and if he was just starting out in todays market, well who knows. Picking up one of those knives today, well you just cant explain it. Yea I know the feeling.

Heres a pic of one of my daughter's first, looks a lot better than mine did. She was twelve when she made this one, just turned thirteen this week.