June 5, 2013
I've been trying to keep myself busy and tired. Last Saturday our dog Kanga passed away. She had been diagnosed with a splenic tumor so it wasn't altother unexpected. But she has been such an integral part of my life for so long I feel incomplete without her. She saw me through two battles with Cancer. She was at our feet when my wife and I were married. Our daughter's first word was "Kanga". The world seems like a less inviting place without her in it.
Here's one of my favorite shots of her that I took in 2007.
A more recent shot with her pack-mate, Eshi.
It's been difficult to maintain motivation, but shop time allows me to focus on other things.
Here's a batch of four knives I profiled. A Nimrod and a Magua Recurve Variant in .200" CPM154 and two smaller prototypes in .130" AEB-L.
In-hand shot of one of the AEB-L protos.
Steel Dust Art from cleaning up the flats.
The wharncliffe proto with bevels ground and ready for heat/cryo treating.
Nimrod bevels ground.
I also got an early start on the 2013 JerzeeDevil Build Off. Here's the pattern I came up with for my entry.
I'll be using .340" O1 for this one. The sheet of O1 was 6" x 18", which gave me room for a kukri and a smaller prototype. And since I was in profiling mode, I added two more protos in .145" N690. Here's the batch after being separated.
Getting closer . . .
And brought to their final shape.
Holes are drilled and chamfered, which brings us to twelve hanging.
June 14, 2013
I have started my Jerzee Devil 2013 Build Off WIP (Work In Progress). If you aren't familiar with the mighty JD, be advised that it isn't for the faint of heart! If you aren't a member yet, you should join and follow my and the other Build Off participants' WIP threads! There are some fantastic makers competing this year . . .
I wasn't feeling the recurved Magua variant, so I decided to regrind it into a classic Magua. Here she is before reshaping.
And here she is after cleaning up the flats and grinding the pre-heat treat bevels. The future owner requested jimping on the spine, which I'll be adding before it goes to Peters.
Got the bevels roughed-in on this little guy. Although I probably shouldn't use the word "little" considering it's .340" O1!! It was made from a small piece left over from the 6"x18" sheet of steel that the kukri and Build Off knife were cut from. I hollow ground this one with my 10" wheel so it'll still have decent cutting geometry despite it's thickness.
Here it is under the same pattern in .130" AEB-L, which is flat ground.
And here's a shot illustrating the difference between the .130" stock vs. the .340" stock!
Centerlines scribed on two knives made of .145" N690.
And here they are after grinding. Two more ready for heat/cryo treating!
Also got the bevels roughed-in on the AEB-L prototype with a tanto-esque tip.
Four more knives profiled out. The three on the left are kitchen patterns in .118" AEB-L. The knife on the right is a proto in .105" 440C.
The first and third kitchen knives are based on a couple of Murray Carter's patterns that I slightly modified. Murray Carter is an ABS Mastersmith who also apprenticed in Japan to become a 17th generation Yoshimoto Bladesmith. His specialty is kitchen knives and in his recently published "101 Knife Designs" he generously made many of his most popular and useful patterns open source for any and all to use! I'm making the smaller of the two patterns for my parents, who prefer to use smaller knives in the kitchen.
The second knife in the above photo is my original Santoku pattern with some new revisions, most notably adjusting the angle of the handle upward a few degrees.
I received a big batch of wood back from being stabilized & dyed by Faron Moore. Faron currently has a bunch of super nice blocks of exotic wood on sale on his site, which you can check out by clicking his name.
This batch had mesquite, black & white ebony, amboyna burl, Turkish walnut, maple burl, oak burl, and Australian yellow box burl from my good friend & talented knifemaker Dmitriy of DP Cusom Knives.
Speaking of wood, I've been fabricating scales in anticipation of the 18-knife batch that will soon be returning from heat/cryo treating.
Desert ironwood and Blacksite 690 carbon fiber rough cut.
Fitting them together with a black/white G10 spacer.
Epoxied and clamped. Thesea are going on a CPM154 WKH.
Several sets of scales that have been rough cut, flattened, and epoxied to their liners.
Three more sets of scales getting flattened, fitted, and prepped for epoxy. LOTS of good stuff in this shot!
And lastly, a shot of what's hanging.
June 19, 2013
More scales! Here is some mesquite that recently returned from being stablized by Faron Moore. These will be mated to some black & brown G10 for one of the 3V Nimrods that should be returning from Peters any day now . . .
I fabricated the below scales with the other 3V Nimrod in mind. I used green canvas micarta, thin tan canvas micarta, and stabilized red logwood. Each scale consisted of six pieces, each of which had to be perfectly flat and parallel for seamless contruction. I love green and red together!
Nine sets of scales ready!
I got the bevels roughed-in on this AEB-L Santoku . . .
Six more knives about to come to life. Three prototypes, a Sevbok, a Bybee Bowie, and a SFB wharncliffe variant. All in O1 steel.
The 1" hole is drilled for the Sevbok and all six are roughed out on the bandsaw.
And finally brought to their final shape with the KMG.
I recently had a family member request a good skinning knife. Since I didn't have a dedicated skinning pattern drawn, I started to do some research. That of course lead me to the inimitable Bob Loveless, who designed and made some of the most recognizable (and valuable!) hunting knives in existence. I printed some of his drop point hunter patterns and used them as the basis for the new pattern for my family member. In so doing I grew to see the usefulness of the protruding guard, which lead to more experimentation and even more patterns drawn. The two patterns below are the result. You'll see the Loveless-inspired skinner pattern in future updates.
Holes drilled and chamfered. Shout out to my good friend Aaron for his generous support!
The Board as of today:
June 26, 2013
I have finally ventured into the world of social networking. Hatcher Knives now has an Instagram account, which I've been updating daily with my iPhone. I like this app because it's photo-oriented. You can download the app to your phone and get my shop udpates in real time as well as follow my account online: http://instagram.com/hatcherknives
I got the bevels roughed-in on a couple of the O1 knives for the next heat treat batch.
The above knife was hollow ground using my 10" wheel. How's this for symmetry?
Right side grind = .803" tall.
Left side grind = .803" tall.
Admittedly, my grinds are very rarely this precisely symmetrical! 
I finally got my heat treat batch back from Peters. I now have a total of 41 knives hanging in my shop. A new record.
The God's Guardians, my collaboration with Alphahunter Tactical, lookin' good in blue. If you look closely you can see the hamons are already showing.
Time to start finishing some knives now that I finally have hardened blades to work with!
I decide to finish the two cleavers and one of the O1 protos as a batch. First I remove the heat treat scale from the perimeter.
The heat treat scale is sanded off the flats of the .315" O1 cleaver.
Center line is scribed so I can finish the bevels and bring the edge down to it's final thickness.
Bevels finished to 30 microns.
Go through the same process for the CPM154 cleaver and the O1 proto.
The two O1 knives get their swedges ground.
Then it's time to work on scales. Drilling through a scale for the CPM154 cleaver.
I rough-cut the scales using the bandsaw and bring the front of the scales to their final finish.
Then they're dry-pinned to their respective knife tangs.
And ground flush.
Perimeter of the scales and tangs are hand-sanded to 600-grit.
Next I begin rough-shaping the scales on the grinder.
More to come on the next update!
