Stillwell Art

I have been learning to forge knives from a man who has become more of a friend than a mentor over the past couple of years. Although, due to work and school I have not been able to get out to see him and make anything in quite a while, but I plan on making more knives very soon and hopefully selling a few. I enjoy the process almost as much as I do the final project. Together we spent quite a bit of time learning how to get a nice "S" curve in the nickle-silver guard, that went nicely with the overall curvature of the blade... adding nicely to it's aesthetics. The Black-Palm wood that I chose to make the handle was almost as hard as the steel and was quite difficult to drill properly to fit the 3/4 tang into just right. We ended up filling the gaps in with epoxy, which only added to the strength of the handle. It has a great balance that fits perfectly right behind the guard on the handle and we finished the handle with a curvature that meets the guard

A friend of mine introduced me to a guy that forges knives. After hanging out with him and getting to know each other he agreed to teach us how to forge knives as long as we paid for our own materials. After watching him make a couple of knives, he began teaching us how to do it ourselves. For my first knife I said I wanted to do a large curved blade, which he said was very difficult, but I had my brain and heart set on this design. I also wanted to do a clay treatment on the blade, which he had never done before, so we learned how together. Needless to say we were both quite pleased and impressed with my first go at forging a blade and fixing a proper handle. Hand forged Japanese-style blade made of 1080 High-carbon steel. Full Tang. Overall length 16 inches. Blade length 9-3/4 inches. Olive micarta handle 6-1/4 inches. And we  Clay-fire treated the blade twice , which gives it that smokey look to the metal. It was the first time either of us had e