At the gembloux knife show

verndahl

AKA tintin
Hmmm, can't seem to get anything. Just a blip of a W and then nothing.
Oh wait, if i go to your website then i can see them. Wow! what a bunch of cool knives. Thanks for sharing Bruno.
 

Bruno

Administrator
Staff member
I made a ton of pics, partly to share impressions of the show, but also for inspiration or reference.
My wife came down to the show on the last day with her friend and the kids.

Her friend is a professional photographer and took a lot of pics. Often time, she would say something like 'oh this is beautiful' and then my wife would think to herself 'not really, because this, that, and that is wrong'.

My wife knows quite a bit about knives by now, and she is a hawk for spotting fit and finish issues. So any gap, or wayward polishing scratches or grinding lines, etc.

She said that at the show, more than half was really not up to standard and pretty 'shoddy work' in her opinion. Which is not to disparage that work, per se. There is a vast market for knives from 50 to 150 dollars, and you simply cannot spend the same time on the finish as on a 500 $ knife.

And the interesting thing was that while the prices for knives at the show was very diverse between 50 and 2500$, there was a really strong correlation between the quality of the work and the price. For example, if you saw a knife (and looked at it as a knifemaker) you could more or less guess the price, and if you looked at a price tag, you knew more or less what you could expect.

That by itself was interesting because it gave me a reference to compare with. Sometimes I do wonder if I am charging realistic prices for my work. Now for razors I have enough references to know that my prices are good. For larger knives like chef, my prices are actually on the low side for the level of quality I make.
 
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Bruno

Administrator
Staff member
Oh, now you're getting your family hooked too! Well done. Say hello to everyone, especially that dazzling redhead.
Oi @Mike Blue my oldest daughter has taken up forging some time ago! So far she made a couple of bottle openers and a fire poker. She wants to get started on knives (which is why they came down for the last day of the show) so I bought us some 3 mm thick 30 mm wide flat stock 1075. The thickness is already good for small knives, and the maximum width is also good. So we can focus on getting her to forge a knife to a given outline.

And 1075 is easy to forge and easy to quench. At the show we also bought a book on paracord handle wrappings. She already does paracord bracelets, so the skillset for handles is already there. I want to have her make 'brut de forge' little knives, with paracord handle. That way the only grinding involved is the bevel flats. And all the rest of her time is then forging and handle wrapping.

We all know that polishing is important for commercial and aesthetical reasons. But for now I want her to be able to focus on the fun part of making a knife, and get her to finish things.
 

Bruno

Administrator
Staff member
I just got word that the knife I bought at the show is underway :D
More on that later :)
 

verndahl

AKA tintin
Works now. Can't wait to see what you make with the things you bought. Also interested in seeing your new knife!
 

Bruno

Administrator
Staff member
SC145 or 145SC is a carbon steel with 1.45% carbon, and nothing else. It's as pure as you can make steel.
Bascially, there is a steel guy in Germany, called Achim Wirtz. He has access to a lot of professional steel connections, and had this steel specially made to prove that German engineering can be superior to Japanese steel fabrication quality. He had 1 batch made iirc. Many people bought it and loved it, but he no longer has it made. It's gone. He does have a new steel 125SC which is 1.25% C and some Manganese to ease HT, because 145SC had absolutely no alloying elements, it is a water quench steel and many people didn't have the skill to succesfully do that reliably.

Achim is also the guy you go to if you want something special like the cronidur I mentioned, which is something you can only buy in 4" round as the smallest size, which he cuts and then turns into bar stock.
 

RezDog

Member
Nice haul and a ton of cool pics of cool stuff at the show. It would be interesting to know the price tag on some of that stuff.
 

Bruno

Administrator
Staff member
Sure. The steel was the cheapest. the O2 and 15N20 were 40 euros each. The bars of 1075 were about 5 or 6 each. The big bars of XC130 were 16 each. The end of cronidur was only 12 euro but that is WAY under market value.

The stabilized handles were 70 euros each. I bought them because I liked them and could see myself using them. There was a very big variance on the prices. Some handles of the same material with virtually the same shape were 120 euro. I couldn't tell the difference. The raw ribs were 60 euros for the longer ones, and 40 for the short one. the 4 pieces of raw sea cow bone were 40 each. The little pieces were all between 5 and 10, and the mammoth molar was 40 for the 2 pieces. The pieces of antler I think about 10 each.

The solid chunk of ivory was 120 which was an absolute bargain. I have noticed that big raw chunks of mammoth are fairly inexpensive. this is probably because most people don't have the tools or the confidence for sawing it. rectangular scales pairs go for a lot more. Plus this was the inside. The colored outsides go for more money. Even so, I could have bought larger pieces for a couple hundred but I didn't have a good use for them that warranted the investment.

The titanium damascus was 100 euro which is expensive but I just wanted to give it a try. we'll see how it behaves.

I haven't done my accounting yet, but I would say that excluding the knife which is currently underway, I spent about 700 and 800 ish on materials. That is a lot of money, but I much prefer buying this kind of thing in person and knowing exactly what I am buying, instead of buying stuff online. Eventually, it will all be paid by the customers who buy the finished knives so I learned not to think about this kind of money in the same terms as household money.
 
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