BARR KNIVES

ESSAYS ON GRINDING AND SANDING

• Design
• Quality Aspects
• The Discerning Eye

Few things in nature really make a good knife, except what you accidentally step on. If I want a knife that is better or more convenient than a found object, then it will involve making something. As a result, knifemaking invariably entails some stock removal. It can be achieved by cutting with wedge-shaped cutters based on the physics of shearing the metal. It can also be done via grinding, which does much the same shearing of the metal, but on a far smaller scale. The tiny abrasive particles on the belt cut away tiny bits of metal, cumulatively turning the cut-away portion into dust.

There are two basic kinds of grinding, precision and nonprecision. Precision grinding creates the smoothest and most accurate finish. The simplest precision grinding machine is the surface grinder, which makes smooth, flat surfaces. The workpiece is clamped in a vise or held down via magnetic force on a sliding table which is adjustable front to back and left to right and the grinding wheel is suspended over it and is adjustable for height. The machine has more or less complete control of the workpiece, and does very well by it, as long as the operator has set it up properly. But precision grinders are extremely specialized pieces of equipment and financially out of reach of most knifemakers, or at least me, but if you hear of one for sale cheap let me know.

I don't have any precision grinders so all of my grinding is nonprecision or off-hand grinding. That means that I am holding on to the workpiece and applying it to the abrasive belt. It is also the process during which the greatest screw-up can be applied to the work in the shortest amount of time, short of poor heat-treating.

Shown here is what an off-hand grinding error looks like. Notice the bevel being ground into the blade. You can also see at center where I lost track of what I was doing and put a little hump in what is supposed to be a straight line. Fortunately this was early in the process and was no detriment to the finished product. But at least I got it on film before it disappeared. On many knives I have made this same type of mistake much later in the process and the evidence is still there in the finish of the knife, like a big divot.

It is also in the off-hand grinding where the idea is made real, and two knives cut from the same pattern don't always look the same. Because of subtleties in the implementation, the end result can always be a surprise. Some of these come about from having to erase minor screwups, but sometimes I just try something different because a tiny change can make a big difference in the overall intent of the piece.

DESIGN

At first, the knife is a rough outline on a piece of steel or just an idea in my mind. I started grinding on many of my earlier knives with no idea whatsoever as to what was going to come out. I found that without planning, the knife tends just to fill the available real estate of the steel, rather than being independent of the original shape. I would go to my old grinder, steel in hand, thinking "I'm gonna grind away everything that doesn't look like a knife". This led to some of the ugliest knives ever created.

A blurry picture is just fine for these knives...

I have since tried many other design and implementation aids. Like leafing through all of my knife publications for inspiration, right before drawing out, with a magic marker, a knife design on the steel. Or spending many hours torturing myself over whether or not I should use pre-ground knife blanks available through supply houses.

A pre-ground blank requires only that I finish sand the knife, taking out the roughness and giving it whatever level of finish and furniture I choose for it and apply a handle. The gross decisions of overall shape, artistic intention, and balance are already made for me. I only did it once, because I wasn't sure of my ability to competently implement the grind on a long kitchen knife for a birthday present for my cousin. It worked out all right in that there was plenty of work just in the finish sanding. But since the handle shape was pre-determined to the shape I bought, it wasn't quite the way I would have done it.

Now I prefer to plan more carefully the profile of the blade from the beginning and I seem to get better results that way. Yet, I still watch the knives create themselves to some extent, as the layers of effort wash over them. At this point I have three permanent patterns for knives, an upswept skinner, the gardener's knife, and a new knife that was really designed from a very free-form hand drawing. Sometimes drawing is an excruciatingly exact, erasure-laden process. Other times, the drawing just seems to fall out the end of the pencil. I like it that way better.

The skinner is a small hunting knife with an upswept blade, hollow grind, and simple slab handles. It's my own interpretation of a standard pattern. I think it's a nice little knife, but my current level of finish is a bit much for its clumpy design. An Alaskan customer told me that one of my knives skinned three elk and a moose before needing sharpening. I don't hunt, but that sounds pretty good to me. The skinner was my best seller.

The gardener's knife (shown above at left) is my own design. It's sort of an upscale pruning knife with a sheepsfoot style blade and a chisel grind for grafting. I think it's good for my first foray into a more upscale market. I have some of the aborted prototypes around the shop and they have proven to be a very handy shape. I don't much like making the same thing over and over and I haven't developed a large portfolio of styles because of the haphazard way in which I design/create them. This has left me at something of a loss in terms of marketing/business, but I make knives because I can, not because I can sell them. Each knife is a fresh challenge to what I can and can't do, and repetition of a pattern serves to refine skills. The gardener's knife finally has a good sheath, but leatherwork is still so hard on my hands that it's slow going.

Grinding a knife is where "the rubber hits the road," in terms of how faithfully the design is implemented. The knife is first formed in profile, like a shadow in steel. The profile is a huge determining factor on the overall style, but the placement and presentation of the cutting edge (flat grind, hollow, convex...) can change the focus in the piece. The object is to make it look like a machine made it, but with far greater care than any machine is ever likely to administer.

QUALITY ASPECTS

The quality of the grinding is what I look at when I evaluate another maker's work. This is where the symmetry is created or lost. I see balance and flow as the Holy Grail of knifemaking. Symmetry is fairly easy to obtain with the aid of precision grinding machinery, but smooth, flowing transitions require a complexity of implementation that is available only via extensive machine programming or the skilled application of human eyes and hands. When real symmetry is achieved via machine, the result is a top quality implementation in the medium. And when good symmetry and flow is achieved via the skilled eyes and hands of a craftsman, it is a triumph of multi-disciplinary taskwork. And when the piece is of classic design or is otherwise creatively outstanding, it is fine art, like jewelry.

It is commonly said in knife magazines that many men won't wear jewelry other than a wristwatch and wedding ring but will carry a pocket knife and may like that knife to be finely crafted, like jewelry. That's me! Many men are content with factory offerings, just as many jewelry buyers are content with or unable to afford jewelry that is truly custom and not made from a mold with 200 other rings at the same time. Actually most people don't know the difference and get along just fine. But others know the difference and are willing to pay the price required for the truly original, handcrafted artifact.

While vacationing in Venice, I found a cutlery shop on the Merceria del Horologio or watchmakers market that had certainly the best collection of fine cutlery that I had ever seen. Though it was close to closing time, the shopkeeper was gracious enough to show me any of the knives that I wanted to see. He had pieces from many makers that I admired, Warren Osborne, Jack Busfield and Friedrich Schneider, among others and I took the rare chance to smudge up $50,000 worth of knives in about a half-hour. I got to carefully feel the actions of fine gentleman's folding knives with pearl and opal handles. I got to peer down the spines of some great work and I did find flaws, but they were really small, and I was looking for them really, really hard.

Perfection is my goal. If you never carry or have no interest in knives, then perfect has no useful meaning in this context. But if you use knives and carry them from time to time, then the perfect knife might be the one that is always there, does the job and doesn't break or cause injury. Then there are some people are never without some kind of knife. They may use a knife often in their work or are just convinced of the utility of having a knife handy. I fall into the latter category.

The first knife I remember owning was a folding fishing knife with yellow plastic handles. I probably traded some Hot Wheels toy car for it, but I have another one just like it, pretty junky. I remember that knife and many others in the intervening 31 years. Most days I carry some sort of edge, even though the most likely task to be performed by my knife is cleaning my fingernails or opening a package. Still, that much use is enough for me to have developed a relationship with the carried knife and lately the carried tool as well.

I carry a Leatherman(tm) combination tool and it's great. It's always at hand so I often have the exact tool for the job without taking a single step. A knife buyer who has this kind of view of knives will be familiar with and willing to pay extra for a knife made from superior materials or of a more pleasing style. I am at the far end of the spectrum when it comes to my expectations from knives, especially hand-made customs. My view of the perfect knife is that it is an impossible goal, something to strive for but likely never achieve.

I spent some time with Spencer Fraser, who created and owns SOG Specialty Knives, a Northwest cutlery manufacturer. He related to me a story of dealing with his manufacturing plant in Japan. Spencer toured the production line and was eyeballing the finished product in minute detail muttering "I just want them to be perfect." The factory representative replied with "Spencer-San, there is no perfect knife."

This simple statement elevated the knife and its manufacture to something sublime, without clear boundaries. As a maker, I realize that the perfect knife is in the eye of the beholder, that you can make a perfect knife as long as the purchaser sees it as such. But a knifemaker evaluates the work of others with the most critical eye. I know there's a flaw somewhere in there and I'm gonna find it, if only to determine the maker's and my own place in the pecking order of knifemakers. That time in the Venice cutlery shop was a pivotal moment in my own appreciation of knives and knifemaking. It marked the point when I could evaluate work of the highest caliber on a visual level. A small victory, certainly, but a necessary step in the process of becoming able to produce work of similar quality.

After my trip to Italy, I traveled to Woodson, Texas to spend a week with knifemaker J.P. Moss. J.P.'s experience include making knives which were featured prominently in Clint Eastwood's movie Unforgiven, a film that gathered some critical acclaim and gave J.P. a big career boost. During my five days with J.P., we spent about 40 hours making a folding knife and talking about the craft of knifemaking, marketing, general metalworking and whatever else came up. I learned how to best set up and use my drill press, and other machine tools. The most important things that I learned during my week with J.P. were points of attitude, not points of technique. Fit is determined by the flatness of the mating surfaces and the firmness of the fastening. And the finish is whatever it looks like when I give up on it.

I came away with few new techniques specific to knifemaking and a completely different viewpoint on knifemaking and metalworking in general. I see knifemaking as a specialty field in the huge category of metalworking and general fabrication. I have also become a brutal judge of fit and finish.

Most knives utilize more than one material in their construction. Blades are generally made of high-carbon steel, but where the knife meets the hand the possibilities are endless. Wood or antler products are the most common for the bulk of handle treatments. Other possibilities include (but are certainly not limited to) man-made materials, stone, or animal parts for handle embellishment, brass, steel, or, for that matter, any metal not toxic to the user. Since the use of knives has been universal for hundreds of thousands of years, there is little that hasn't been done before.

In order to make a variety of knife styles, I have to be able to work in many different materials. Different materials abrade differently, have different temperature sensitivities or are otherwise a pain in the ass to work with right next to each other. It makes knifemaking a multidisciplinary art.

The Discerning Eye

One of the intangibles that I learned during my week with J.P. Moss is that the eyeball is one of my most important measuring devices. I learned another lesson yesterday when I killed my mokume-gane billet and slotting cutter at the same time. I learned that the ear is another measuring instrument, useful for monitoring the processes not under my direct physical control, unlike offhand grinding.

When grinding off-hand, the main feedback loops are visual and tactile. I will grind to a line that is either scribed on the work-piece or an imaginary line that I just 'put' there in my mind as I am working. Usually before grinding the bevels on a blade, I will scribe a pair of lines about .040 inches apart running parallel down the edge of the knife blank. It gives me a target for when to stop grinding, since .040 inches is how thick I want the edge before sharpening. A smaller knife can have a thinner cross-section at the edge, but only if it's not going to be abused, or used as a pry-bar. Once I get really close to the layout lines I begin to depend more on the feel of the work-piece against the abrasive than by where the grind lines are. A large flat surface can only be produced by a precision grinding machine, or by feel when off-hand grinding. My sense of touch for this is highly developed and I usually know when I have made a mistake before even looking at the piece.

With much of the grinding, I don't get to see the cut happening the way I do when cutting on the lathe or milling machine. A stone or the abrasive cloth obscures all the grinding action. When using cutters it is possible to see the cut happening, to watch the teeth of the cutter take their shavings off the work-piece, and the precision of the attendant machinery prevents the mid-course shifting of a few ounces of force, which can be so dangerous in off-hand grinding.

But off-hand grinding is what has to be done, and fortunately the more I do, the better I get. And the better I get at grinding, the less time I have to spend doing it.