Experimental Grinds

Experimental Grind 1

Every time I grind a blade, it's experimental, but I'm calling this post Experimental Grinds, because it's the first time I've posted illustrated explanations of how grinds are done. Please refer to the link at the bottom of this page for the photo of this (completed) knife and others like it.

One note: in the top picture, the clip grind would look slightly different until Grind 2 (bottom drawing) intersects it, but for the purpose of this post, the drawing is good enough.

In no way do I want to take any credit from, or make any connection to, Tom Brown, who created an amazing knife with the "Tracker." I was not attempting to do what he did, and my knife making skills pale in comparison to his.

When I made this blade I was taking a stab at (pardon the pun) a new way to grind a fuller.  Perhaps I failed, but I believe I came up with something that looks and functions completely different than any other knife.

Grind one. A high grind, just along the flat portion of the edge that will be sharpened.

Grind two. A lower grind (with a different angle) along the entire cutting edge, which intersects the first grind. I actually grind right over the first bevel as if it wasn't there. This creates a stepped down edge where the two grind angles meet.

Here is the finished blade, before handle material was attached. Almost exactly as planned.

As a side note, I submitted this design to CRKT's NPD (New Product Development) team in 2017.  I heard back from Douglas Flagg a few months later. He told me the NPD team liked it, but decided not to pursue the design because their large fixed blade market is small and they couldn't sell enough knives to justify the costs. He also thanked me for my military service. What a great guy.

Experimental Grind 2

Here is the blade before heat treat, I haven't even drilled pin holes in the handle yet. The idea here was to remove a big chunk of steel, to reduce weight, without lessening the strength of the blade.

Experimental Grind 3

This unusual clip point is the result of experimenting with different grinding techniques, and trying to figure out how clip points were traditionally ground.  When I started making knives, there weren't as many resources for knife makers, so I had to figure things out through trial and (lots of) error, and quite often, that would result in something unexpected...but welcome. I really like the way this knife came out. I'll add more--later--about how the end result was achieved. To see the entire knife, click the link below.

Click HERE to see all of my custom knives.