Benton Frisse

Awesome looking knife, man!

Awesome little ax! Would you mind sharing your process with us? I've been wanting to make a small pack ax like this for a while. I've seen people make the Hudson Bay belt ax that is only about a 3 or 4 inch head, looks like a mini Gransfors Bruk. But I like this style a lot!

This looks super cool, man. I've thought about making one of these from a leaf spring. I've seen them in action, they're a beast of a culinary blade!

I only have one comment.... I like it!

You all know a pirates favorite letter right? You think it'd be "Rrrrrrr", but it's really the "C"! Sorry I couldn't resist.

I think I'll do just that, Basher. Thanks! You're right, I'm so excited to shoot my own arrow heads. Granted, I still probably won't be able to hit the broad side of a barn but nonetheless. I think I'm going to give a broadhead a whirl, too. Those look fun.

Oh. My. God. That's awesome. Looks like something Blackbeard himself carried! Man, you do some killer work!

Awesome! I think there's blueprints for those on Anvilfire.com! Thanks, Thomas!

Yeah, it's got quite a bit of mass. I was thinking of thinning the socket more, and grinding it to be shorter. I start out with it longer because I'm scared I wont have enough material flattened out for a socket, so I can then grind it shorter if need be. There's getting to be so much more fine detail work to practice in arrowhead making than I ever imagined. They're a real pleasure to make, though. I just need to make a spring fuller for the neck in between the body of the point and the socket. I think It'd help it come out a bit cleaner.

Hey ya'll, had some better luck forging some arrow heads yesterday. Here's one of them. The only big issue (that I could find, I'm sure there's plenty more) was that once the arrow was inserted, I hadn't quite thinned the socket enough in a spot, so the head sat SLIGHTLY crooked. But I shot it a few times anyway, and judging by the damage it caused to my bag target and my tomahawk target.. these bodkin's are nasty little boogers! I'm going to try to make a dozen of them, get them all attached to some arrows, and have a ball! The nice heavy heads seem to help the flight and accuracy of my arrow, too. Or maybe it was a few lucky shots...

Gorgeous! Those mosiac pins are pretty sweet too.

Wow, that's awesome. Love the darkness of the whole piece.

Hey everyone, thanks for the responses. We used 1/4 x 1 1/4 x 10 inches long. The bits were all truck spring. I can't remember what steel that is, forgive me, as I should know that by now. Elmer Roush was also there, along with Jack Stottlemire of Rustick Knives. Both were awesome dudes.

Here are some photos from a class I took this weekend at John C. Campbell. It was the tomahawk and ax forging class with Ryan Johnson. Awesome people, awesome place, and awesome instructors. I came out of it with three folded hawks. Learned how to pour a pewter cap. Had a lot of help from my friend Will McAllister from Bray Oaks Forge in TN on the cap and the filings for the head and handle. JCC is an impressive place. Can't wait to go back. Thanks for looking!

Those are some good looking axes! Where at in Eastern Kentucky are you located? I'm over in Evansville, Indiana!

Definitely slit and drift the eye, but dont worry about getting it perfect to size for your handle first because the eye will distort as you shape the blade. I was talking to Elmer Roush this weekend and he was talking about another technique where you can slit the back all the way open, then wrap the back around a drift and forge weld it. I had never seen that before. I thought it was a pretty cool idea.

Thomas, I think I'm going to try both. I like the idea of using a stump, too. Lord knows us blacksmith's have plenty of strange steel pipe and rings laying around! (and fortunately, we've got a lot of stumps, too!) Thanks!

Super cool!

Could a swadge block with the appropriate sized cups in it work? I was curious about this earlier and I'm glad I stumbled onto this thread!

Man, this is nice. A good looking hunter, for sure!

Super cool hamon. How is the bone attached?

Gorgeous! Really cool pattern.

I suppose you fellers are right about that! Note taken! I was going to etch it, but I decided not to. I even went and bought ferric chloride from radioshack! I think I will make another one of these soon. They're fun to work with. Thomas I like that idea. I'll have to work towards that. Thanks guys!

Super cool blade, Steve! I like that blade shape!

Hey y'all! I finished a knife that I've been working on for a while. Here's the break down: It's a blend of Japanese and Nordic style, which kind of just happened as it progressed. I had certain features I liked, and I continued to add more. The blade is a three-layer blade, with mild steel for the cheeks and a layer of tool steel in between for the cutting edge. I took the idea from the book "Swedish Blacksmithing", in which the smith makes a "U" shape bend in some smaller mild steel flat bar stock, drops the piece of carbon steel in the "U", and welds it, cutting the excess mild steel off. I did that, ground it, shaped it, and started polishing. When the weld line came out, I was pretty stoked. I know some people get their hamon by clay tempering... but I was pleased to get one this way by way of weld lines. Tempered to a straw color over the forge, this baby is pretty dang sharp. During polishing, I shoved it through my thumb nail... twice. No worries, lesson learned. The handle is poplar, mainly because that's all I had access to besides red oak, and I wanted to mix it up. It has 6 coats of boiled linseed oil and a final coating of Tru Oil Gunstock finish. I left my wood carving chisel marks in it because I felt it gave it a cool texture and even feels nice in the hand. The spacer, which I kind of took a concept from the Japanese seppa, is from a copper pipe between 1/8 and 3/16in thick. I cut it with a hack saw and then filed it down to shape, drilled the holes and filed to fit the tang. I did a little (or tried to) fancy filing on the spacer... but I'm not too happy with it. Didn't have small enough files. Oh well. Hope you all enjoy. After reflecting on the project, I do wish I would have polished the blade a bit more and to get out some of the sloppy, deep weld lines. Although, the blade is solid. This is technically my first lamination or forge weld on a knife blade. I wanted a rough, old look to the blade. I wanted it to look like it has a story behind it although I have not yet come up with that. I would have also used a bit more dense wood. But the poplar feels nice and it was easy to work. Cheers!