Romey

I would for leather or metal work

Another Homeade one with many uses besides leather is iron and vingear together for about a week or so, I have seen seen steel wool used as well, make the blackest black you ever seen. There are others to maybe ill postem if anyone is interested R.

Those look like the got a good fit, great job

One thing I wonder about is, I wonder what folks use for a cutting table, I have seen marble used to cut on and that alone is going to dull even the toughest steel. My saddlemaker friend uses a large sorta plastic half inch sheet to cut on. When I picked up my stamping marble at the Monument maker place they had these real nice thick sorta plastic boards about a inch thick they lay the marble on when doing whatever they do on it, they regularly throw them away and said I could have any they had outback in trash, there was about 50 of them so i nabbed one up,wish id have grabbed all of them now, works better then anything else i have found as of yet altho most everything I do is with a clicker knife and not a head knife. Got the whole works for free,marble and all. I bought a couple new sharpening systems to help with the next article as im going to touch on a few products one was OK and another was ACK for 30$ I exspected much better quality. Most people arent going to beable to sharpen as I do starting with a variable speed belt grinder so i figured Id do some recon on other hand sharpening stsyems out there, Hopefully they will take the one back its that bad I dont even want to waste space with it. I decided im going to try and make 2 headknives, One a flat ground with flat secondary edge and the other a slightly convexing zero grind , same heat treat same steel same thickness and see what works best. Grinding them on a 2 inch wide belt is going to be as much of a challange as forging them from one inch round bar, headknives are odd shapes to forge. I suspect they are stamped out or laser cut out and then machine ground so the thermocycling in the forge alone should be a huge improvement. And without question a more personal higher standard of heattreating will be a bonus and before anyone asks I dont plan on making them to sell in quanity, they are gunna be a pain I suspect.

Now thats some eyecandy

Bruce I have a question for you and anyone else who cares to comment. You said that head knife was thicker then normal before you reshaped it. Would you happen to have a guess as to how thick it was, how thick it is now? A saddlemaker friend of mine asked me to make him a small headknife identical to one he had already but smaller. I studied the one he had, it had no secondary edge, a full convex zero grind almost a flat grind with a very slight convexing but it was very thin like 1/8 at thickest. Is that about the norm for thickness across the board for headknives? That headknife was a Osborne by the way. I am trying to see if there is anything besides heattreat and choice of steel that I could possibly improve on and your insight would be most appreciated if you have any ideas. In theory that grind i described on his osbourne would be ideal at that thickness but it would be Im going to try a thicker flat grind with flat ground secondary edges. Ofcourse he wont beable to sharpen it like he does the other (felt wheels)

When ever something cuts, i automatically assume it needs sharpened out of the box, which those tandy tools did and for most part if one is handy a person can rework any tool to suits ones needs in which case tandy edger for instance probably is fine for the money depending on how much one of a better quality costs,of which i havent been around. One issue with making ones own tools I often run across no matter what the tool is ones time making that tool in materials and labor cheaper then buying something of good quality thats ready to go to work. Sometimes it is, sometimes not. I guess im at the point with my leather that i have use for a certian higher quality of tool depending on what it is. One note was i did see some 150$ custom stamps that were no better then the lower priced King and Watt stamps. One important thing was i got both these custom stamps half price, if i handnt, i most likly wouldnt have nothing but crafttool or what have you. Altho i think im going to not but new crafttools and try to get only the older US made ones from now on.

Holly, trust me im all for inexspensive and with doing blacksmithing Im first one to make a tool rather then buy it, infact i have made some pretty neat sort of backgrounders by slitting up the ends of wooden dowel. Made my own groover ect. Thing with these stamps were I thought alot of it was me, that I wasnt casing right or the leather I was buying wasnt right or some lack of knowledge on my part. My biggest lack of knowledge was not knowing what to look for when buying stamps much less the differance it makes. After seeing these Im pretty confident I can take some of my cheaper stamps and rework them via files and dremel to be better then they are. I have made many stamps, altho they were hot and cold stamps for metal, a tiny bear foot stamp, Viener for leaves and such ect, no reason I couldnt make em for leather too.

I was for awhile thinking Id like a real vast assortment of stamps and tools, for me though especcialy after seeing the differance in the custom verses store bought im taking a less is better additude of having a few real good stamps that I will use alot then alot of possibly lesser tools that ill only use once in awhile. Im mostly talking border and basket stamping in general as this would take up 90% of what Id ever do on a sheath. One of the guys who is at my disposal for leather info is addiment that custom tools arent nessicary and still to a certain degree I agree but he also makes 99.9% of every tool and stamp he uses soooo in really his are custom made as well. At anyrate my point was i was amazed at the differance of the stamp, it was like going from tandy leather to wickett and craig leather. Very noticable differance. Is the same differance with comparing things such as edgers as well? Because I am even less happy with crafttools edgers. At any rate others mileage my differ

I was over to my friends saddle shop. Another longtime cowhand and a really great saddle maker. We were talking about stamps and how blah i thought some new stamps i got of craft tools were stamping. He pulled out some barry king and some Jeremiah Watts stamps and a old USA made crafttool, wow what a differance in crispness compared to the newer crafttool stamps. I was highly impressed. Anyone else find fault with the newer crafttools made over seas? I got a Watt braid stamp and a King Scroll type stamp from him that he doesnt use for $45 total I have decided Id rather have a few GOOD stamps then alot of not so good stamps and im getting free private lessons from him soooooo guess whose in the market for a tree

Bruce, You’re very welcome I hope the articles help. Sounds to me like you found by your own experience exactly what I been referring to in the article. That drag is the exact thing one can only feel to understand, too much meat behind the edge will cause drag as in such as a convex edge, to little and there isn’t enough meat to suppose the edge. It’s the very reason why 98% of the blades I make are flat ground blades with a flat ground secondary edge at 19 degrees. I have seen some head knives flat ground with a convex edge which makes sense because it gives a person the most meat behind the edge with the least amount of drag in deeper leathers, the problem is you lose some ability of fine cuts with a convex be it on the edge or the whole blade. As for your question you pretty much summed in up with what you actually did on your blade, It would be best for heavier cutting with a thin blade to have a slightly steeper secondary bevel IF your purpose is tougher cutting like leather. The thinner the body of the blade (main bevels) the more you can get away with steeper secondary bevels. When one gets right down to it, an edge could get down to a single molecule wide and they are getting close to it with diamond chips in scalpels. But breathe wrong on it at till dull or break. Also if your resetting a grind yourself, although I doubt this is the case with a head knife , sometimes a person can grind so far up towards the spine you run yourself out of the Martinsite which is what has make your steel hardened and you can end up sharpening softer and softer steel as one goes. I have seen this in edge quenched custom blades where only the edge was hardened. If your ever curious, run a file down the edge, it should slide pretty easily without digging in to much if at all. If the file bites in ALOT, there is likely a poor heat-treat issue as hand.

Sharpening 101 part 2 The last article we talked about the type of edges and their intended uses, in this one I hope to explore a few ways to sharpen a blade. There is many ways to skin a cat and same applies here. There is no one way to get a sharp blade so Ill explain some of the ways I do it and have done it in the past and why I don’t anymore. Remember just because you might not do it this way doesn’t mean I think it’s wrong. Firsts let’s look at what is sharp and when is it sharp enough. As a custom knifemaker I try to fill the needs of the customer and the intended purpose of the knife was made for. A chopping style knife like a camp knife doesn’t need to be as sharp and as honed nor would it be good for it to be as sharp as a chef knife. Wood and rope cutting takes a different edge as slicing a tomato and if you read the first article you should have somewhat of a idea the type of edge needed for specific tasks. As with each style of blade and blade edge are made for different purposes, so does each need sharpened slightly different. I prefer a more aggressive toothier edge for general purpose knives, much of what I may refer to is really only noticed by sight under a microscope and by feel in use so some imagination here is needed or if you really want to explore it, find a 10$ 100x battery operated microscope at radio shack and have a look see for yourself at the edge of various blade edges, dull to sharp. To me a knife is sharp when it easily cuts what its intended to cut and that IS sharp enough, often times going past that is just spinning your wheels or for parlor tricks. I once made a knife so sharp on purpose that simply slapping the face of a piece of paper left a slice in middle of the paper, and then a rolled a single newspaper sheet into a tube being careful to not double it up, stood it on end and cut in a single swing into and left the bottom half on the table. Impressive? You bet, scary sharp, and a hell of a impressive trick but it wouldn’t hold that edge for very long using it for much else then paper or vegetables. But I had made that knife just for that purpose, why I bet you ask? Simply to see if I could make a knife do it. So the result is if it’s sharp enough to do the job it’s intended for and do it easily without a lot of force or pressure (think safety here) then its sharp. The old stand by of testing for sharpness is shaving hair, Ill tell you right off that that is more parlor trick then indication of sharpness. A dull or rolled edge will still shave hair but lay into something like leather and one sometimes quickly notice it doesn’t easily slice the leather and sometimes gets worse as you go. Not to say I haven’t or don’t shave my arm hair, there is constant patch of hair missing on my left arm, this may seem contradictory to my previous statement but I do it more to feel how much pressure it takes to shave hair, very light pressure tells me I’m getting close to where I want to be to BEGIN the sharpening process but use caution. I know of one instance at a knife show where someone picked up a knife off a table to “test for sharpness†and not knowing how sharp the maker’s knives were he filleted 3 inches of skin off and was taken to the hospital. Most often I like to test the edge on what its use is for be it leather or what have you. Paper is another indicator, slicing paper especially thinner paper like a newspaper or even tougher cigarette paper is a good indicator as a dull blade will want to fold it over rather then slice it and if you have to slice very close to where your holding the paper to get it to slice means its still not as sharp as it could be. Another thing I look at for sharpness is sighting down the edge of the blade edge up and look for glint of light reflecting right of the very edge, this shows sign of a rolled or flattened edge. It’ll take some practice to see but once you do you’ll know it right away. Just sight down the edge with some light above and to one side a bit or another, sunlight works best I have found. Now that we have touched on that lets take a look at the edge angle, this is almost as critical as the heat treat of the steel, which is the soul of a blade. Most is not all blade edges are from 15 to 25 degree of angle relative to the spine. 22 is what most factory knives come in, and most come dull, not just dull but very dull, fact is I haven’t seen a single factory blade of any type, knives, razors, axes, chisels or leather tools that I felt didn’t need sharpened to some degree or another. The reason they come like this is, one the factory assumes you know this already or two that if you don’t know this, then a super sharp blade shouldn’t be in your hands to begin with. Here is a list of the degree and intended uses. 15 to 17 degree is where your fillet and kitchen knives as well as lot of razors are angled at. Very scary sharp but at a price, not a lot of steel behind the edge to keep it sharp with hard use also generally easy to hone back or simply use a steel to straighten the edge back and its ready to go again. 17 to 20 degree is where you’ll find the best all around edge for cutting and slicing. I find 19 to be the optimum area for my knives but it requires very good steel and a high performance heat treat for edge holding ability. 20 to 25 degree is where most factory blades are set, they will get sharp, sometimes it takes some work to get then real sharp but tend to hold the edge well once one is, as there is a lot of steel behind the edge. Also a less controlled heat teat of the steel (mass produced) can be gotten away with at this angle. Anything above this is into cleaver, axe hatchet area depending on the type of grind as discussed in previous article. Probably most head knives as well which id like to discuss at some point fall in the 20 degree and up area. A good trick to figuring and keeping the angle when hand honing is using coins, stacking coins on your stone and laying the spine on the edge of the coins. For instance on a knife if you have a knife blade that’s 1.25 inches wide and .25 thick at the thickest part of the spine then the gap from stone to bottom of spine should be 0.282 inches which can be converted to 3 dimes and 2 pennies stacked up. A head knife would be a big different to the radius of the edge but a rough starting point for the front of the head knife could be if 3 inched wide and .25 thick with say 21 degree would come out to 0.95 of a gap or 6 quarters and 7 nickels. If anyone wants to try this and wants the coin stack figured just let me know id be glad to do it. In the next part we will get to the actual sharpening techniques I use and know about as well as some of the tools and gadgets will be discussed. Feed back and comments appreciated. Until then keep a light rein, a foot on each side and a far away look

My question for everyone would be: What other factors or influences of these factors have other people seen to cause problems with saddle fit? It may have been brought up before but bad, ok perhaps not completely bad but sometimes poorly thought out breeding practices and for sure lower quality horsemanship skills and or knowledge I beleive is a contributing factor but thats getting a bit off topic.

Thats the kind of logic that would make me want a saddle built from your tree. Very informitive thread, welcome to the forum!

"Wow! Gosh! Gee willikers, am I impressed! Apparently (according to you) I have wasted half a century of saddlemaking and deluded hundreds of working cowboys, saddle students and dedicated pleasure riders. I must also be leading many others astray with over 80,000 books and videos that I have sold, eh?" Thatd be my guess "I didn’t say anything to insult anyone on this forum but you have to start out with insults , i.e. “fuzzy though processâ€Â. Uh yea you did "I must also be leading many others astray with over 80,000 books and videos that I have sold, eh?" To quote you "Discussion with people who are only trying to impress is a waste of time." Personally Your the only one trying to tell the rest of the world we are wrong and who knows perhaps everyone but you is wrong, Ill accept that if its, try and kindly ask you to teach me but I damn well know you wouldnt be talking down to me to do nor should you to anyone else on this or any forum. Everyone here is good people with a crap load of points of views and we try to bounce ideas of leather making and various crafts off each other. Your the only one i ever seen tell someone they were wrong. Talking down to folks isnt a very good way of teaching. As for impressing of years, I showed your post to a 82 year old saddlemaker friend who started in 1945 and he laughed at your "years" and your views of fitting" He had a bunch to say but ill digress Sir, nothing here got personal until you made it personal. If I in anyway offened you, or anyone else on this forum in previous posts I stongly apologize. If anyone feels I need removed do to speaking my mind, well so be it.

When I use spell check in Microsoft word it says " your kidding right? I dont have that kinda time."

Thats a super tip Bruce! JohnD, be careful using a grinder on hardened steel, keep your passes light and when you feel any heat in the steel dip it in water right away before making the next grinding pass(as soon as your feel any heat in it). This will keep the temper in the steel. Letting hardened steel get hot or worse change colors will ruin the heat treat and temper of the steel on a chisel or blade and it will get dull faster and/or deform the cutting edge in use.

Well i actually enjoy leather work as much as i do forging blades or blacksmithing or the fit up or the wood work involved. I truelly beleive in everything being made by my hands altho certian sheath styles or incase someone specifically wants a Morrissy made or Chuck Burrows made sheath, 2 masters at what they do, far better then what i can do. I may send that sheath out to Sandy Morrissey for one of his buetiful sheaths. The buisness of bladesmithing is fickle and it makes sales when the sheath is made by wellknown makers like Sandy so its sorts of, do i put my desire of wanting to do leather work above my desire to sell. Not all would i send out but it dont hurt once inawhile to have his name attached to your knives. Crud i keep forgetting about the pics, ill get em stay tuned

Welp, sure as heck confused me now. There is llot in each of these posts I completely agree with and some leaves me shaking my head and other points making me just say HUH' Now mind you im not a saddle maker and have no interest in doing it myself but as a customer and a person whose job it is to ride everyday, on varied makes and molds of horses I have my own views and vested interest in saddle makers opinions. Personally I couldn’t give a rats butt in hell in how easy it is on the saddle maker to make what I want or what their other customers want. For the money one lays down on a custom saddle a customer wants what he wants, within reason, them being if you know something wont do for said horse. Dusty perhaps am wrong but are you saying it’s completely out of the saddle maker’s hands and worse responsibility to care about fit? If this is true, why bother with custom at all, I have a courtz that fits me well, fits most horses well with mircofitting of padding ect, I can and do rope everything from calves to bulls with it, use it for the backcountry hunting I guide and due to MY fit of padding which IS my responsibility and my responsibility of horsemanship, conditioning ECT. I have also seen some circle Y saddles and other non custom saddles do same thing without soring a critter and here is where I think it matters, so long as I use them horses that fit em. I ride ALOT of different horses on a 1 month basis, 3 month basis and 6 month basis that are not my own and tend to need several different saddles due to their structure, conditioning ect and it would be a impossible luxury to have a perfect fit SADDLE for every horse. It is also impossible to be brought horses in perfect condition or moved that out collected right away, 2 things that very few that are brought to me ever are so I get as close as I can and then adjust with padding ect ect. That being said, if Im reading your post right its not your responsibility or care to even get me that close and if that’s the case just any old saddle will do so long is it fits ME. So as a customer why go with custom? Fancy stamping and silver is is the whole sceme of things nothing I could care less about. That being said do not believe there is a saddle that will perfectly fit every horsebut there could be, I also do not believe fitting is a myth maybe to you it’s a myth not to me. I have no expectations or desire for a one off that will fit one horse, I need to fit many, well built with some thinking put into a saddle and tree IS what I require and wont substitute for less which to means giving thought into fit, a saddle maker does his part, I can micro fit it to a variety as needed after that and that’s exactly why it isn’t a myth. If im confused buy your post its becuase i am , feel free to clarify if so

Good lord Bruce J, how did you get by without having Spam as your middle name? Johanna, You should know by now im always testing the edges of unlawfulness and disorder! Personally I kinda like spam in da can and like said the can alone is useful Spams is full is you know what, so it fits

I appreciate all your comments, unfortunitly I doubt my sheath work will do it justice except in the fit which is what Im most concerned about anyway. Its a long row to hoe to make decent knives, forging, grinding, learning metalurgy and heattreat, learning about woods and then sheath work on top of it, learning isnt the tough part, doing well like you all do is. Atleast for me, but I enjoy challenges.

What Bruce said

Just wondering if this spam will get deleted

Bruce my friend , there is no need for excuse of ignorance, If there was Id be aplogizing for mine and get nothing else done! The false edge is at the spine of the blade, its the angled area on the top that runs from the ricasso to tip. It thins down the spine , Knifemakers use it for several reasons, one it changes the balance of a blade heavy knife, sometimes its just for looks and in my case I wanted a blade that keeped the strength of the spine for big game yet made it exstra fine at the tip in this case for gutting upland game birds and water fowl as well. Basically its like having a the use of a thinner blade without losing the strength of a normal blade. If youd like I can take a quick pic of what it looks like from the top looking down. I appreciate the comments from both you and Don as well!

Yes everything there is completely made by myself, Forged the steel from 1 inch round bar my own heattreat ect ect