O1 Knife After a Long Break from Knifemaking

Since discovering paddling last summer, I have given almost no time to metalwork. My personality is such that when a new interest comes along, it's pursued to the exclusion of most my other hobbies - at least for a while. I'm sure there is some psychological flaw diagnosis in there somewhere, but that isn't the point for today! About two weeks ago, this picture of a knife came into my head, and initially, I hunted for a place to purchase one like it. I drool openly over the work of Rick Marchand at Wildertools, and all of my favorite knives possess some level of primitive styling to them. Plenty of others have also put this style to good use too, for sure, I just think Rick does it the best. However, Rick's work is a bit beyond my spending reach. I had a length of O1 remaining from last year's knives, and it was just enough for the 7" pattern I worked up.

Design laid out on the O1, I rough cut what I can with the angle grinder. A bandsaw would make quicker, more precise work of this step, I think.

The Harbpr Freight 1x30 belt grinder is still going strong, and those Cubitron belts are incredible for taking off material quickly.

Most of the knives I've made before were scandi grinds, but for this one, I wanted an almost full flat grind leading to a convexed edge. I grind by hand with a little jig use here and there, so I suspect that my grinds don't fit the exact definition of any one type.

A little gun blue and bleach to age the metal a bit...

Into the one-brick forge for the heat treat

And after the heat treat and tempering...

The handle was nothing fancy, but I tried to pair it with the same primitive look - scorched oak scales with a fiberglassed jute wrap over the top. I sanded the jute down to a comfortable smoothness and ended up putting a tiny secondary edge on after the pic below was taken. The angle I had on it was just too steep and it was chipping a little.