Recent work

[AkFilm]

I'm still really shy about my work, so not posting on the main forums pages, but you're fellow Alaskans...I feel safer from the sharks, and I know it's important to share work now and again. 

Here are some of my recent projects I'm working on, or finished with. 

Single hand Italian arming sword circa 1490. Based off a museum piece. Blade is 5160, guard and pommel are mild steel chemically blued. The guard is S shaped with flaring ends. Pommel was a pain to hand sand to shape, but it's there now and happy with it. Grip is maplewood covered in dyed leather with risers. 

Next is a knife, made from an 80 year old file, seemed liked 1095 so treated it as such. File worked spine, handle is stabilized cottonwood burl that is crosscut with brass pins.  

Some work in progress: 

A Swiss Degen circa late 1400's. Blade is 5160, grip is zebrawood, guard and pommel are etched wrought iron. 

I have no good photos yet of the small utility knife I'm making for my wife. It's a small feather damascus blade, with float copper bolsters and the handle is made up of stabilized 4,000 year old redwood from the permafrost in Alaska. 

[teenylittlemetalguy]

nice work! I don't blame you for being shy, the knife guys seem to play rough in my opinion.  where on earth did you get a hold of the redwood? did you stabilze it? 

 

[AkFilm]

Thanks!

 

I picked up the redwood from a man near Healy that does a lot of prospecting. He stabilized it, though I'll have to redo it, since it really only penetrates about 1/4 inch into the wood. It's very bizarre to work with since it's on its way to becoming coal. Both hard and soft sections, takes a lot of control to get even sanding, and can get fragile.  It takes a beautiful sheen though. 

This is it in it's raw form (along with the float copper I'm using for the bolsters)

The handle in process. 

Found a picture of another knife I did this spring, I was really bored one day. It's based off of trapper knives from western canada/eastern Alaska 1850-1880. I only used materials they would have had access to in the region. Blade is the spring from leg trap, with file work (following the originals), handle is Alaska Yellow Cedar (originals used a lot of bone) bolsters are rough spun twine (seems to have been a 50/50 split with twine and rawhide strips). Blade finish is the forged finish. Pictured with the raw material. 

 

[Lou L]

Amazing work.  I sincerely appreciate your attention to history.  You should share more because it is inspirational. 

[New axe maker]

Wow. Great work!

[Frosty]

Nice blades! Are you going to bring them to the Sept 24 meeting? It's beginning to look like a number of guys making and starting to make blades are going to do a show and tell, maybe do a little demo if I can talk them into it. I'd LOVE to get a chance to see your blades in person.

Frosty The Lucky.

[metalmangeler]

Hello I met you this afternoon, looks like you are more into knives than I, you saw a few of mine, likely none of them have near the time you are putting into yours. Coil spring traps are a more recent design than you are looking for. you would want a long spring, maybe one you hand forged. It is good to see some new faces. Mark

[AkFilm]

11 hours ago, metalmangeler said:

Hello I met you this afternoon, looks like you are more into knives than I, you saw a few of mine, likely none of them have near the time you are putting into yours. Coil spring traps are a more recent design than you are looking for. you would want a long spring, maybe one you hand forged. It is good to see some new faces. Mark

Hello. Thanks for talking yesterday! I've always admired your work. 

For my 1800s Trapper knife, I actually used an antique long spring. I only had one though so for the product shot used the coil spring I had laying around. Well spotted! 

I have another piece of the long spring trap, want to do a more traditional bone handle. These were made from much larger traps than the one I had, but it was a fun venture into something different. The next one had a more traditional dagger profile.  Here's some originals. 

[Frosty]

Drats, missed you. See you at the meeting?

Frosty The Lucky.

[AkFilm]

Hope so. I'll try to wrangle up some blades. Several have gone home to various people. Could give me a reason to finish some up too that have been sitting on the workbench. 

[Frosty]

No rush, bring what you have or want to. I look forward to meeting you but don't be surprised if you have to introduce yourself a few times, my memory sucks it's a TBI thing.

Frosty The Lucky.

[The Hess]

These are all amazing work in my opinion and a huge inspiration. As a new blacksmith and practicing blade smith these give me goals to shoot for. The more pieces I see of everyone's work the more amazed I get but also more confident because I see that others can do it so I believe in myself to have the ability to learn from you all and do so also. Thank you so much for the post.

[Lou L]

Wish I had a cool group of people like that having meetings near me.  I don't get it...I live in what was the manufacturing capital of North America for many years and yet can't scrounge up a blacksmithing organization to meet with.  The again, my state would fit in Alaska's back pocket, so maybe you all are traveling a ways to meet.

[Frosty]

We might have a couple lakes the size of Ct but I bet you can ride a bike around more people in an afternoon than live in Alaska, Texas would fit in Alaska's back pocket. I think you just aren't connecting yet, I see guys posting from Ct. pretty frequently. I could wish Alaska had 1% the industry CT did, finding smithing tools here is a rare and special occasion.

The Alaska club is pretty new I'm thinking maybe 9 yrs old and is just now starting to go through a growth spurt. New people come to meetings, some join, some come over and let me show them a few things. It's starting to turn into an active bunch, just last year we bumped the meeting schedule up from quarterly to bi-monthly. Meetings are actually getting a little crowded! Heck our last two clinics actually turned a profit and we brought the demonstrators up from the lower 48.

It's pretty wicked cool right now! 

Frosty The Lucky.

[teenylittlemetalguy]

On 8/28/2016 at 11:24 AM, AkFilm said:

Hello. Thanks for talking yesterday! I've always admired your work. 

For my 1800s Trapper knife, I actually used an antique long spring. I only had one though so for the product shot used the coil spring I had laying around. Well spotted! 

I have another piece of the long spring trap, want to do a more traditional bone handle. These were made from much larger traps than the one I had, but it was a fun venture into something different. The next one had a more traditional dagger profile.  Here's some originals. 

AK Film, thanks for the info on the redwood, that really piques my interest. 

this example photo you posted, do you know the origin of the bottom one? it looks Alutiiq to me. I love it!

[AkFilm]

They are Tlingit, and part of the fur trade route. 

My from notes: 

Royal BC Museum:  "One type of dagger usually dating to the last half of the 19th century have bone handles with an open metal circle at the proximal end of the handle. The bone part is often carved with a circle and dot motif. Some of these were made from the broken halves of steel bear traps. The trap part was composed of a folded piece of steel with a circular hole in each end that came together when. A frilled design was often carved around the proximal end. When not made from a bear trap part, a separate brass end was added in imitation of the latter type. This iron or brass proximal end of the handle was usually notched to give it an overall frill design."

The working of the steel was done at a very low temperature according to the x-ray research. 

These pictured are: (RBCM Ethnology Collection #9876 (West Coast Vancouver Island), #10164 (Fraser River Canyon), #13639 (Interior of B.C.)

[teenylittlemetalguy]

cool, thank you. they are all exquisite. 

 

[redeagle]

18 hours ago, Frosty said:

It's pretty wicked cool right now! 

Frosty The Lucky.

Hey Frosty, Is that a reference to the weather? Nice to know the club/community up there is prospering.

AkFilm, That's real nice work. That trapper knife looks great. You could put it into a museum and not tell the difference.

[Frosty]

On 8/31/2016 at 1:40 PM, redeagle said:

Hey Frosty, Is that a reference to the weather? Nice to know the club/community up there is prospering.

AkFilm, That's real nice work. That trapper knife looks great. You could put it into a museum and not tell the difference.

Seldon, is that YOU!?

Jer

[AkFilm]

Newest knife. Don't really have any operational grinder, so everything is by hand. Kitchen/utility knife, a good ageless knife that could fit into many time periods. Very thin flexible high carbon blade with a high polish, perfect for cleaning meat. Mahogany handle with brass tube pins. Finish is tung oil, and then sealed. Making a leather sheathe next. Overall length: 10.75" blade length: 6.5" weight:  3.2 ounces.  I had some scrap and was bored today. 

Newest knife. Don't really have any operational grinder, so everything is by hand. Kitchen/utility knife, a good ageless knife that could fit into many time periods. Very thin flexible high carbon blade with a high polish, perfect for cleaning meat. Mahogany handle with brass tube pins. Finish is tung oil, and then sealed. Making a leather sheathe next. Overall length: 10.75" blade length: 6.5" weight:  3.2 ounces.  I had some scrap and was bored today. 

[metalmangeler]

I saw you had posted so I looked through this thread again, I am wondering if maybe there was a reason for the notches in the rings on the trap knife handle. Seems like if this was a common part of the knife it likely served a purpose. might have helped with fleshing or if it was sharp maybe as a bone saw. It would be nice to get a real upclose look at some originals.