First Friction Folder

So, this blade was made at the request of my good friend @sachem allison . He's helped me refine my work on my chef's knives (by testing out my blades and critiquing them fairly and honestly) far, far more quickly than I ever would have been able to otherwise. Without his help I'm certain that you would be seeing a far, far more inferior product on these pages. That said, my gratitude to Son is pretty much limitless. As far as I'm concerned he will always have at least one quality knife of mine to use, and/or call his own.

Anyhow, onto the project!

Son contacted me and asked me if I had ever made a friction folder. My sceptical 'Umm...no...' had zero impact on his immediate enthusiasm and obvious certainty that I was not only up to the task of actually building the thing...but that I was going to make him a functionally...as well as aesthetically (you guys may or may not have any knowledge of Son's aesthetic sense, lol...but the later pictures will speak for themselves) perfect friction folder. By the time we were off the phone (not the first time, but the tenth or so)...he'd convinced me to go ahead with the project.

This is what we started with. Seriously.


With that uhh...sketch (yes, I use the term loosely) in mind, I forged a blade out of a cutoff piece of W1 steel. W2 is my absolute favorite...but I could happily make knives forever if I had nothing to use but W1. When properly heat treated, those two steels go far beyond their simple chemistry in edge holding, abrasion resistance, and scary sharpness.


Now, in those ten phone calls where Son browbea...err, convinced me to take on this project...he told me repeatedly he wanted this thing to look a hundred years old. With that in mind, I went through my stock of wood and picked out this interesting piece of Arizona Desert Ironwood. I had a crazy idea to use the bark as part of the butt of the handle.


The wood hand sawn into scales:


The scales cut out, with a quick and dirty fit to make sure everything would line up, both open and closed:



Shaping the scales:





All the pieces for the finished knife. The handle was soaked in choji oil (mineral and clove oil mixture), and then buffed with beeswax. The blade was differentially hardened in brine, then tempered at 400°F for three one hour cycles:


Annnnd...done!










Again, the idea was a blade that looked centuries old, but well taken care of. Something passed down lovingly for generations from father to son. I think that together, we managed to pull it off nicely.

Thank God for great friends who aren't scared to help you push your boundaries .

 

Very cool. Nice work!

 

Thanks man!