Description

Blade: 15″ 6-bar composite

Handle: Bronze, wrought iron, ivory G10

Overall Length: 19″

This knife is massive, elegant, and lethal. She is one of the five knives I submitted in June of 2019 that earned me the rank of Master Smith from the American Bladesmith Society and as such represents a significant, one-of-a-kind piece of my personal history. 

I envisioned this piece as a fusion between an Afghani weapon called a Khyber knife and an ancient Celtic weapon whose name is a mystery. In truth the piece in its final form doesn’t really represent either of those, hence my own title for it. The blade comprises six individual bars of damascus steel: the edge is made up of five 180-layer twists, and the spine and bolster are a bar of 500-layer laminate. There are three fullers along the length of the blade; one at the top of either bevel, and a third running the length of the spine. I hand scraped each one to accent the overall form and to play a little further with the layered steel. There are two bronze accent pieces just behind the bolster, sandwiching a hot-blued wrought iron spacer that finished out to a deep, rich black that looks almost like hematite. The grip is carved G10, a synthetic material that I chose as an analogue to ivory. The grip is carved in abstract to resemble a bone, and I felt that the only material more suitable aesthetically would have been solid ivory, but I do not support the harvesting of ivory and I did not have access to a piece of fossilized material that would have fit the project. 

This is easily one of the best knives I have ever made. It is imposing but subtle in form, extremely comfortable in the hand, and elegant overall. It will be hard for me to send this one out into the world. But don’t let that stop you…