Personally, I would prefer to use what modest skills and facilities I enjoy to benefit society!

John

I won’t be watching it because knives don’t interest me but I am sure it is a very skilful process. The only knife I need is my dear old Swiss Army knife, a blade for opening packets and parcels, a corkscrew for the odd bottle of plonk and a bottle opener for my beer, alas the thing for getting stones out of horses hooves is now redundant, the daughter had her horse put down. On a serious note I don’t think the video will affect knife crime figures, the scrotes who go round stabbing people are probably not capable of making their own weapons.

Did he suggest you should carry it around with you in the UK?

Nonetheless it would be pretty difficult to do it without the weapon.

Regards

Frank C.

It has a blood groove and a crossguard. Kitchen knives and wood-whittlers don't have those.

It's a weapon, or it's meant to prompt thoughts of one.

In the light of frequent current news reports, of course anyone should expect the reaction.

Personally, I've been feeling the urge to make some knives recently. I'm getting sick and tired of the stainless steel kitchen knives that bur over as soon as any other member of the familiy use them. I like to be able to slice the tomatoes for my salads and cut the meat when preparing it and find that I'm having to steel every knife before I can use it. There are far better alloys available than 412 and 420 stainless which still have some corrosion resistance.

.

Regrettably, I don’t have it, but my Dad made a beautiful knife especially for that purpose

… it was ground to a knife-edge, from a piece of HSS machine-hacksaw blade, with remnants of the teeth remaining. … and for a touch of style, the handle ‘scales’ were tomato-red Perspex.

MichaelG.

Dear All, in answer to Tom Pratt, I would agree that i was being a bit sanctimonious and i might even be a bit hypocritical because I am not that PC myself. However, I would push back on the twit bit!

In answer to Bob, nearly all my engineering activities either directly or indirectly supports the REME Museum which is a registered charity.

Recently I made an accessory drive pulley wheel for my 190 ton Scammell Contractor. The blank was 230 mm dia and 125 long it weighed 40 Kgs when I started. The Contractor is used to transport REME Museum owned heavy armoured vehicles to steam and military vehicle shows around the country in order that the maximum number of people can enjoy and understand them.

I have been undertaking a longer term project on the REME Museum's Conqueror ARV. Amongst other things I have rebuilt the Meteor M120 petrol engine that is basically an automotive version of the Merlin engine. I had to make an extensive range of tooling to do this. Note that the tank does not belong to me and I cover all the costs of the engineering work.

I am pleased to say the Conqueror performed well at the recent Capel military vehicle show and large numbers of the public enjoyed seeing it.

I really enjoy this forum even if we josh each other a bit. I do rather larger work than models at the moment but the tips and advice are invaluable.

If anyone needs access to a slightly larger lathe or milling machine, I am near Portsmouth.

John

I apologise for the tone of my post, it was a bit too much of a 'knee-jerk' reaction. Well done for supporting a charity, even if it is a museum dedicated to weaponry…

I have learnt a lot from making knives (heat treatment, polishing, and fit and finish in particular) and I have gained huge satisfaction from other people's efforts.

Most knives in 'collections' are never used.

An interesting discussion. Going through my "collection" I lost count at about 50. The majority live in the kitchen. They are mostly pointy and very sharp. There are also steak knives and a carving set for the dining room.

Moving down to the workshop there are the usual snap blade and exacto knives for miscellaneous hobby work, along with a number of scalpels and micro knives (cross-over between work-work and small scale modelling ). Most of these have spare blades which probably number in the hundreds.

Then there are the paid work type knives – diving knives ( 2 types ) and compulsory for professional diving, at least where I was trained, and various bush knives for working on land. And, finally, there are a couple which are quite old and rather valuable which live out life rather quietly in an out of the way cupboard.

Despite this lethal armoury so far the only injury caused is to myself, and then only minor cuts.

While I seem to have gone a little overboard in my acquisitions I suspect that most readers will have a similar range scattered around their homes and workshops, all of which are capable of inflicting at the least severe injury if not fatalities.

As a former Australian Government Minister commented when the airlines changed to plastic cutlery to protect us from the terrorists – a poke in the eye with a plastic fork is just as disabling as many of the injuries that can be done with metal cutlery. Interestingly there was never a change to plastic in first class. Apparently we were not anticipating any first class terrorists!

As commented above, knife making is a skilled art and the knives produced as one-offs are unlikely to go on to violent use.

Pero