Gavin Rondeau

I took a class last weekend with Nick Anderson of Nanda Knives at Jim Austin's fabulous shop in Oakland. It's been years since I made a knife and this class was about as much fun as you can have with your boots on. I took 12 pages of notes! I was particularly keen on this class because culinary knives are something I've struggled with in the past. 1084 around 6.5"at the cutting edge. Handle is curly koa with board butter finish. As that wears off I'm planning to try out Hassui ceramic finish (also known as liquid glass). You can bet I'll be making some more.

JHCC, Thanks! I'll check that out.

I really like all of your pieces here and would love more details on how you made them. I'm particularly interested in the scorp, the bowl gouges and most intriguingly the auger bit. I've wondered about that for some time.

Lanternnate, thanks!

Lou L, thanks and you're right. I wouldn't baton with it either but it handles pretty sweet when carving green wood. templehound- thanks! After seeing your work, I consider that high praise. And you're not wrong, I did have a mishap with the groover.

D.IVO thanks! I wouldn't say perfect but I was pretty happy with it.

Could you elaborate on this? I've tried a variety of things for electroetching resists and not had much success.

I forgot to say, your feedback is welcome!

This one is kind of a sister blade to my previously posted walnut-handled one. Gemsbok horn bolster, bird's-eye maple handle, hand-forged 1084 blade. Hand-stitched, wetmolded, veg-tan dangler sheath.

JHCC, I'm starting to feel like there's a theme here. I appreciate the feedback and I think you both make a good point, re: moving fully into either a more rustic or refined aesthetic. That's something I've been thinking about a lot lately and finding tricky in execution. I'm not going to change this knife, though. It's usable and carves well (and hasn't sold on my etsy page so it's mine now) and I'd rather take a fresh crack at another iteration than continue to faff with this.

Latticino, it's definitely not traditional and you make some good points. I do a lot of green wood carving (spoons and such) and a narrower blade/point is handy for that. Thanks for the complimentary remarks. The varied finish is something that I arrived at inadvertently, it was originally much more satiny but after much work on waterstones and stropping it came to look fairly polished. It's pretty close to flat ground with a little appleseed convex at the very edge. I'm actually working on some more traditional puukko-styled knives at the moment, I think they're just about tops for an all-'rounder.

So, I've never posted any knives here (just a lot of lurking) but I think I could use some feedback, so here goes. Hand-forged from Aldo's 1084, blade is 3.5" with distal taper, tempered at 325 F. The handle's 4", bolster is gemsbok horn, PetSmart cow's bone spacer, black walnut for the handle and netsuke. Sheath is wet-formed and hand-stitched 8 oz veg tan, the rings are cold bent from brass rod.

There's also Central States Metal Artisans which meets every Monday night starting at 6 PM in Haysville. It's free to come observe but if you/he really want to dive in they prefer you become a member. The dues are $20 (per year!), so it's pretty reasonable. The first Saturday of the month is the bigger members' meeting. I've been to several Monday nights and they're very welcoming and generous with knowledge.

iron dwarf, did you get your heater up and running? Are you satisfied with it? I've been eyeing those Chinese units but I'm too chicken to be an early adopter.

The wood shop is going to be framed in with its own separate dust collection and, I think, HVAC. There will be a dedicated space for hot work. We have the forge and a couple of electric kilns for ceramics already. I am looking into movable partitions/welding screens for UV protection. The torch cart is a good idea. I'll be looking into that. We're planning to have a bin for safety glasses and hearing protection by the doors and an ironclad rule for their use. We're instituting a tiered training system, essentially certifying people for use of the more dangerous/fiddly/complicated equipment but I also like the idea of those shop manuals for basic stuff. I'm also planning to have some workshops covering many of these techniques. And thanks, guys! This stuff is all gold.