British Blades Forum Knife - The Coolest Knife That Never Was?

[Stuart Mitchell Knives]

Mentioned in another thread, but I think it is worthy of its own place.

Many moons ago, 2007 in fact, the idea of an anniversary knife was mooted by the forum, for the old, as was, British Blades forum.

A few things were decided: a blade length of around 180mm (7"), good and hefty stock, 7 or 8mm or so, through tang with a solid G10 handle.

This was the initial design/concept drawing.



The idea of that metal guard was soon dropped, and it became this.



Work started on prototypes.















What you see above is almost a year's worth of making, trying and testing. The problem was the G10 and more specifically, the machining of a rectangular slot that would snugly fit the tang through the length of the handle.

We did want the slot to fit the tang too, rather than just drill it, for strength reasons, and it would just be very cool.

The avenue we went down was bonding the handle together, in two halves, so a channel could be milled before bonding the two sides together.

For the life of me, I cannot remember now why, but eventually that concept was scrapped and we decided to go full tang instead.

 

[Stuart Mitchell Knives]

Still take down construction, as you can see, so we then thought if the scales come off, make use of the space beneath them.







Screws were proving problematic; there wasn't anything nice, anything cool on the market that we could use. Up steps one of the BB faithful, "I can help with that", and he did, again I cannot remember who he was, I really wish I could, but he made some of the coolest fixings screws I have seen to this day.



In case you didn't have a screwdriver. They were beautiful things and supremely fit for purpose.



We added some thin, black liners, which were actually rubber, effectively sealing those small storage compartments in the tang.











All of that was the culmination of maybe a couple of years' work, which I don't suppose helped things; then real life took over, and things went the way they did.

I often think about it, and Martyn, I hope wherever he is and whatever he is doing, he is well; he was a good sort!

 

[Chris]

Awesome, thanks for sharing this.

 

[Mesquite]

It looked like it would have been a very handy knife to use

 

[Wildgoose]

Looks like a well designed and useful knife. Release for 2027? A sort of anniversary anniversary knife?

 

[Stuart Mitchell Knives]

I still have these in the workshop

 

[Springchicken]

Could you be tempted to make up one - or more - of them? It looks a very fine cutting tool indeed...

 

[Danceswithhelicopters]

What was the reasoning to go for a slotted handle design in the original iteration?

 

[Stew]

The Cooper-Mitchell. I remember it all quite well, though not the fixings. I wonder if it was Marcus who did that? He made some bespoke loveless bolts that I wish I had bought many more of!

 

[FerlasDave]

That’s a cool bit of nostalgia right there!

 

[HillBill]

After 16 years of making knives... I have a couple of questions... serious ones too.

Why such thick stock? Was it a forum vote? ( i didn't really get into things until 2009). For me, anything that thick is just a bit daft. There is no need for it.

2nd, question, which to me makes no sense... You (not you personally per se) didnt want to drill the handle through because of strength reasons? Yet it was decided bonding 2 halves of G10 together was stronger? I am genuinely perplexed.

I love the profile of the knife, looks mint. Don't understand the thinking that went into it though. (Obviously common sense prevailed)

Would you enlighten me please Stu... i must be missing something... unless it was decided/heavily influenced by the forum members themselves. Then i understand completely.

 

[Stuart Mitchell Knives]

Could you be tempted to make up one - or more - of them? It looks a very fine cutting tool indeed...

Potentially, yes. I might grind one of those blanks up and see how it feels.

The Cooper-Mitchell. I remember it all quite well, though not the fixings. I wonder if it was Marcus who did that? He made some bespoke loveless bolts that I wish I had bought many more of!

I think you are correct, Stew, I do think it was Marcus, yes. Thank you.

What was the reasoning to go for a slotted handle design in the original iteration?

I dunno, it just was. It would have been very cool though, don't you think?

After 16 years of making knives... I have a couple of questions... serious ones too.

Why such thick stock? Was it a forum vote? ( i didn't really get into things until 2009). For me, anything that thick is just a bit daft. There is no need for it.

2nd, question, which to me makes no sense... You (not you personally per se) didnt want to drill the handle through because of strength reasons? Yet it was decided bonding 2 halves of G10 together was stronger? I am genuinely perplexed.

I love the profile of the knife, looks mint. Don't understand the thinking that went into it though. (Obviously common sense prevailed)

Would you enlighten me please Stu... i must be missing something... unless it was decided/heavily influenced by the forum members themselves. Then i understand completely.

There isn't a need for it, be a bit boring if we only ever made things we needed though, eh?

Again, it would have been very cool and would still have been plenty sharp enough, just not the best thickness for chopping carrots

That said, the three blanks that you see above have now been surface ground down to 5mm.

The handles that we had made were outsourced to a specialist company that make and machine the material. We were absolutely assured back then that the bond would actually be stronger than the material on either side of it that was being bonded

 

[HillBill]

I dunno, it just was. It would have been very cool though, don't you think?

There isn't a need for it, be a bit boring if we only ever made things we needed though, eh?

Again, it would have been very cool and would still have been plenty sharp enough, just not the best thickness for chopping carrots

That said, the three blanks that you see above have now been surface ground down to 5mm.

The handles that we had made were outsourced to a specialist company that make and machine the material. We were absolutely assured back then that the bond would actually be stronger than the material on either side of it that was being bonded

Sure, would have been a cool knife.

When you're getting paid to make something, doesn't matter if you have a need for it, or ever would have. It wasn't going to be your knife. I've made a few knives over the years i really didn't like the design of, but cash in the bank, is cash in the bank. They help pay the bills.

Ah, the ubiquitous carrot test... lol. I remember that being a thing in knife reviews many moons ago. It'd be a weight issue for me as to why i personally wouldn't be too keen on stock that think, with a heavy handle material like G10. I'm sure it would an excellent battoning knife. though. That thing would give no S hits.

Still dubious about the bond. Sounds to me like the company knew how hard the initial request would be to accomplish. Cant drill a square hole, or a rectangular one. Not through 5" of G10, or any material really. And it would indeed need to be drilled. THey were likely giving you the 2nd best option, because the first wasn't really doable. (I used to be an engineer, more specifically CNC side of things) You'd need hand tools to to finish the corners, and doing that through 5" while keeping tolerances within limits, is slow work.

 

[Herman30]

Looks like a well designed and useful knife. Release for 2027? A sort of anniversary anniversary knife?

Looks quite a bit like this:

 

[C_Claycomb]

I have had a mortised Tufnol phenolic/cotton handle split through the laminate and leave some epoxied to the tang. I was trying to remove it with a chisel hammered into the glue line!
Not much reason to think that an epoxy glass laminate could not be bonded with epoxy to be as strong as a single piece. It’s in the prep and the epoxy chosen.

 

[HillBill]

I have had a mortised Tufnol phenolic/cotton handle split through the laminate and leave some epoxied to the tang. I was trying to remove it with a chisel hammered into the glue line!
Not much reason to think that an epoxy glass laminate could not be bonded with epoxy to be as strong as a single piece. It’s in the prep and the epoxy chosen.

Therein lies the issue. (cost/efficiency wise). Polystyrene cement will bond plastic as strong as the plastic, chances are the plastic with break before the bond. G10 being a laminate of more than one material, you need extremely precise machining to ensure you were bonding epoxy to epoxy and not epoxy to fibreglass. Never said it couldn't be done, only that when bonding epoxy to epoxy... That's still the weaker part of the composition. Its the fibre glass where the strength/toughness is in G10. Micarta is basically the same, but with weaker filling material. Therefore , Epoxy to epoxy will likely be a stronger option. If epoxy was so good... why dont people just make nearly impossible to break epoxy handles? I can break micarta scales, in a vice with a 1lb hammer. I cant break G10 (of the same thickness), with a 2lb lump hammer. I tried, and the bolts holding the vice to the bench came loose due to damage to the bench when i tried. You can cut Micarta with a bandsaw (standard steel blade), you cant but G10 with one. Well, you might get 2" into it but then the blade is dead. And that's just 1/4" G10

 

[Nice65]

G10 being a laminate of more than one material

Worth pointing out G10 isn't a laminate, it's a composite of glass cloth and epoxy, so the point about bonding to fibreglass isn't really valid. An epoxy to epoxy bond is to two identical halves of the same material and fairly straightforward. As @C_Claycomb says, it's the prep and epoxy glue that are key. The glass is why cutting it blunts drills and blades in comparison to micarta which most often uses softer fibres like paper or canvas.

Seems to me the company Stu used weren't shirking the drilling issue but coming up with the best, not second best, solution.

 

[trashcanman1984]

Worth pointing out G10 isn't a laminate, it's a composite of glass cloth and epoxy, so the point about bonding to fibreglass isn't really valid. The glass is why cutting it blunts drills and blades in comparison to micarta which most often uses softer fibres like paper or canvas.

Correct, the glass fibers are hollow, and the resin fills those hollows to give it strength and structure...thus the reason why you have to keep glass mat dry and dust free to get a true bond with the resin.

 

[Nice65]

Correct, the glass fibers are hollow, and the resin fills those hollows to get it strength and structure...thus the reason why you have to keep glass mat dry and dust free to get a true bond and fill those hollows with the resin.

Also the very reason a handle made of pure epoxy is very easy to break, it's just solid glue. G10 is immensely strong because of the glass.

 

[HillBill]

Worth pointing out G10 isn't a laminate, it's a composite of glass cloth and epoxy, so the point about bonding to fibreglass isn't really valid. An epoxy to epoxy bond is to two identical halves of the same material and fairly straightforward. As @C_Claycomb says, it's the prep and epoxy glue that are key. The glass is why cutting it blunts drills and blades in comparison to micarta which most often uses softer fibres like paper or canvas.

Seems to me the company Stu used weren't shirking the drilling issue but coming up with the best, not second best, solution.

G10 is 100% a laminate, AND a composite material. The fact that it is stacked layers, by default, makes it a laminate. If you need anymore proof, you have google. Its also worth pointing out, that ALL laminates, are by default, composites. But not all composites are laminates... If that makes sense? Which then makes everything you said after that point, invalid. Savvy?

G10 by Mark Hill, on Flickr

G10 2 by Mark Hill, on Flickr