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Form and Function

What a knife is made out of defines its use, character and appeal. After all, there is no use in trying to carve a tent peg out of a butter knife, or trying to cut a carrot with an axe, or hating the look of it every time you pick it up

Construction

There are various ways to make a knife, but all rely on heating steel past a certain temperature and then cooling very quickly (quenching) to set the correct crystalline structure. The steel is heated to 830 - 880' Celsius, quenched,  tempered (to take the brittleness away) and then ground using a series of abrasive belts using gradually finer grits to give the final finish. For bushcraft and kitchen knives particularly, the wooden sides of the handle (the 'scales') are then glued, pinned with brass or stainless rods and tube, and sanded to shape (a 'full tang' knife). This makes for a very strong knife. Some of my knives, particularly reenactment and historical knives, may use a hidden tang where the blade is set into a solid handle, rather than scales. This also applies to the Scottish national knife, the Sgian Dubh.

Metals

My knives are made from either 1080 CrV2, which is a high carbon knife steel and perfect for tough and hardy bush or camping knives, Wolfram Special, a Tungsten reinforced kitchen knife steel, or Damascus, which is a combination of high carbon and nickel steels.

Handles

I use a variety of handle materials, from traditional woods to stabilised and coloured burrs, resin and hybrids, and even carbon fibre.

All handles are attached by glue (high strength epoxy) and mechanical means (plain rod, tube or Corby rivets).

All my wood comes from a certified UK supplier, and none of their wood ever comes from a source that is not sustainable. Below are a list of some the woods that I currently use, although I'm always on the look out for something new!

Apple |  Beech | Cherry | Ebony | Elm | Hornbeam | Olive | Lignum Vitae | Paduak | Pink Ivory | Purple Heart

Spalted Beech | Sandalwood | Sapele | Satinwood | Yew | Walnut | Zebrano

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