Forgecraft Upgrade

Here's a vintage Forgecraft chef's knife that came in for a facelift of sorts. Actually when I think about it I really body-lifted it as there's nothing that got left untouched on this one.

I started with the blade which was too thick and had a lot of deep pitting along the bevel. I thinned this section down and removed as much of the pitting as possible but there's still some evidence present of it's former life of service.

The Forgecraft pattern on the blade was reconditioned to show off better and the spine/choil were re-worked/rounded for comfort.

This knife had a full tang but was converted to hidden and a new handle fashioned out of figured maple & ironwood burl along with nickel silver accents.

In my opinion this knife is BADASS! If I had this knife I'd use the hell of it, it's just that nice.


Please feel free to let me know what you think....

 

The fighting over the Forgecraft has already begun...

 

Hahahahaha - he'll lose though.

 

That's so sick.... I want it!!!!!

 

Thanks.....me too!!!!!

 

That looks longer than most forgies I have seen, what's the length on that bad boy?

 

The blade length is 9.5"

It does look long in the pics.....like a cigarette boat!

 

oh, it is beautiful Dave. do you mind telling how you brought out the brick wall to make it really stand out? I've thought that my Forgy handle is shaped wa but is Western in construction. would it rub you the wrong way to give a Forgecraft a similar treatment but with a handle of nice wood in the original shape?

 

Hi Mike, the short answer is to blue it and then sand away what you don't want to be dark.

I wouldn't have a problem with this concept, however in reality the tangs on these knives are really bad. They're thin, unevenly ground, and often rusty which = trouble. Because of this I've been grinding them into hidden tang style. I'm sure that there's a work around that a more patient person than myself could figure out.

 

That ironwood burl is GREAT with the maple!

 

I'm glad that you think so because I had such a tough time finding wood to match up with the maple you sent. I'm not kidding either, I had to dump my bucket of cut offs onto the floor and I sat there for probably over an hour matching them up. I don't go by any rules, just what feels right.

 

This is drop dead gorgeous. I will never look at my rehandled Forgecraft the same way. Did you thin on belts before taking it to stones Dave?

 

Love how the shinogi line is so clean. And for some reason I also like the fact that it starts matching the with of the tang.

 

Hi Mike,
I didn't touch stones at all on this, it's all belt work. I think if stones were used it'd look even better but man that'd be a job and a half to do that!

Thanks for the kind words.

 

Sometimes we get lucky.