Proud Parents

My wife Linda and I recently traveled to Cape May, New Jersey to watch our youngest son's Coast Guard graduation. In addition to graduating, he received an award for having the highest academic score among his graduating class.

Our oldest son served four years in the Marine Corps, including a tour in Iraq.

We are very proud of both our boys and their commitment to their country.

Semper Paratus and Semper Fidelis!!!

Myrtle Wood General Purpose Knife, Handle Finish, Knife Tests

Below is the last knife completed in my most recent batch of knives. The handle is figured, dark Myrtle wood.

THIS KNIFE IS SOLD

Handle Finish
The handle on the knife above was finished with a Cyanoacrylate adhesive, better known as Super Glue. Super Glue has been used for finishing wood for quite some time. It is especially popular with wood turners. The more I research it, the more I am sold on it as a finish for un-stablizied wood handles. The first coat penetrates the wood and seals it, while subsequent coats fill the pores. If done properly, the wood will take on an amazing luster after multiple coats, sandings, and final polish. Prior to using Super Glue I was using Tru-Oil. On oily woods like cocobolo, bocote, and ironwood, Tru-Oil takes forever to dry. It would also take a month of Sundays to fill the pores of a porous wood like wenge with Tru-Oil.




Blade Magazine Knife Tests
This month's Blade magazine has an interesting knife test created by knife maker Warren Osborne. Twelve known knife makers made the same knife, but used different steels. The steels were some of the new and popular powdered metals. The knives were all sharpened by the same person, given the same bevel, then given to a wild game processor for testing. The tester used the knives to skin deer and kept track of the number of deer skinned until the cutting edge needed to be touched-up.

The three top performing steels (CPM M4, CPM S90V, CPM 110V) skinned between 8 and 15 deer before needing touch-up. Unfortunately, these steels are hard on the maker and extremely difficult to resharpen. CPM 154 was tied for third place with eight deer and is user friendly. From there the number of deer skinned progressively went down to a total of 3 before touch-up was required.

I think this type of test has more validity than many of the knife tests published. I would recommend picking up the August 14' Blade magazine for more detail.

For an explanation of the powdered metal process, here is a link to Crucible's website: http://www.crucibleservice.com/eselector/general/generalpart3.html

Odds and Ends

I had been wanting to scan these photos for a while and finally figured out how to work my son's scanner. The photos were taken 21 years ago in the Alaska range. I'm on the left in the photo and Ron Warren is on the right. At the time, Ron was the youngest registered guide in Alaska. He stayed in the business and currently owns/runs Alaska Guide Service. The sheep was taken by Jay Link of Jack Link's Beef Jerky fame. I was the packer on this hunt

The next photo was taken during the same season. For this client, Ken Fanning was the guide and I was the packer. The sheep was taken with a muzzle loader.

When I have more time I'll scan some more photos and post them. I have one of an absolutely huge wolf track I came across while we were hunting brown bear...

My Guarantee

I haven't stated this before because I felt it was obvious, but given the state of our current "disposable society" and questionable business practices, I thought I should. All my knives are 100% guaranteed under normal field conditions. My knives are designed for processing game animals and birds. If one of my knives fails while doing this, I will replace it free of charge.

 However, if you are overcome with a strong desire to see if you can stick one of my blades through a car door (Don't laugh, I have seen published knife tests were this was done.) or you realize you forgot your hatchet and need kindling and decide to split it by pounding on the spine of the blade and damage the knife, that's on you.

Bottom line, I take pride in my work and stand behind it when it is used for it's intended purpose.

Things of Interest

Just some links to things I find interesting...

Since the early 80's I have been a big fan of Ross Seyfried. Here are a couple of links to articles written by him:

http://www.bowenclassicarms.com/news/articles/World%27s_Ultimate_Revolver.pdf

http://www.riflemagazine.com/magazine/article.cfm?tocid=321&magid=24

Forums I enjoy:
http://knifedogs.com/forum.php
http://www.doublegunshop.com/forums/ubbthreads.php
http://forums.accuratereloading.com/eve

And lastly a few bullet makers and custom gunsmiths
http://www.northforkbullets.com/magento/
http://www.grizzlycartridge.com/store/index.php?app=cms&ns=splash
http://www.customgunandrifle.com/
http://www.bertramandco.com/
http://www.martiniandhagngunmakers.com/index.htm
http://www.bowenclassicarms.com/
http://echolsrifles.blogspot.com/

Available Knives 05/03/14

I just finished two more general purpose knives.
BOTH KNIVES ARE SOLD.

 Wenge Handle

Cocobolo Handle

Curly Maple Knives

I have a fondness for Maple; maybe because it is a species indigenous to the Pacific Northwest.

The following is from the Wood Database:

Curly Maple is not actually a species, but simply a description of a figure in the grain—it occurs most often in soft maples, but is also seen in hard maples. It is so called because the ripples in the grain pattern create a three dimensional effect that appears as if the grain has “curled” along the length of the board. Other names for this phenomenon are: tiger maple, fiddleback maple, (in reference to curly maple’s historic use for the backs and sides of violins), or flamed maple.
Unlike quilted maple, curly maple is most pronounced when the board is quartersawn, and the curls usually become much less pronounced or absent in flatsawn boards. Hence, on wide boards where the grain tends to be close to vertical (quartersawn) near the edges and horizontal (flatsawn) in the center, the curly pattern will be most evident on the edges of the board, with the figure diminishing in the center.


Below are two Caping Knives with Instrument Grade Curly Maple Handles. The handle on the upper knife has been dyed brown. The lower knife shows the natural color.

 I can be contacted by e-mail at baumgartknives@gmail.com

BOTH KNIVES ARE SOLD.

Merry Christmas!

I want to wish everyone viewing this blog a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Almost a year ago to the day I completed my first knife. A few minutes ago I epoxied the handles on knife # 18. I have learned a lot between that first knife and the one I am currently working on and hope to continue to learn and improve my knives in the New Year.

I especially want to thank those of you that provided feedback and sent photos. Customer feedback is essential for improving my knives and the photos were just plain enjoyable. Thank you!

Looking forward to 2014, I am planning on adding a flat platten attachment for the grinder, a buffer, and an etcher to my little shop. At some point I would like to make the transition from O1 tool steel to CPM154CM. You should see more Loveless and Herron style knives from me in 2014. Lastly, I am hoping to get some hunting in and shoot a few rounds of international/bunker trap. I haven't been able to do either as much as I would have liked.

Have an enjoyable holiday season.

God Bless,

Lee