Friction Folders – One of my favorite kinds of knives are friction folders. They can be traditionally primitive (like traditional early American mountain man knives), super high tech (like those of the latest William Henry Legacy collection ), or my personal favorite a combination of traditional primitive but very slickly finished and detailed (like some of Dan Winkler’s creations).

What is a friction folder? Very simply any knife or folding blade that is opened and held open by hand, No locks, springs, or leavers to hold the blade open.

In 1968 as a student in Buckminster Fuller’s classes, I had a conversation with him. When asked “What is the future of art?” his reply was “The future of art is integrity.”

This is especially important now, with the scary ability of computers to re-invent history. Honest representation both verbally and pictorially is of the essence!

To know more about the visionary, Buckminster Fuller

In today’s world, making objects by hand is something both less seen and less understood than ever before.
The art of making knives is a wonderfully expressive art form in today’s world, as well as having a rich history in life art, industry, and the cultures of our world.
It has had the ability to bring together men and women from all walks of life.
Through the dedicated work of the Knifemaker’s Guild and the American Bladesmith Society the art of the knife is being nurtured, shared, and presented to the world in an honest straightforward manner. I have also attempted to share this art form.
And of course as a leather worker, I think a sheath can complete both the function and beauty of the knife. That is an important connection to knife makers for leatherworkers such as myself. Link to some of my leather sheaths.

Overcoming My Fear of Knives and Learning to Love Them

I developed a real fear of knives as a teenager in Brooklyn, when a burglar broke into my home and held a knife to my throat.
Now I’m learning to love knives. At least Art Knives.

I went to my first knife show in NYC about 8 years ago. I felt oddly out of place, and I was pretty intimidated by all the men and knives. But I was able to focus in on some beautiful Damascus knives with incredible mammoth ivory handles made by a really interesting man named Todd Kinikin.
Fred said he was thinking about seriously including knives as an addition to his leather store, and I thought that knives would be a great complement. So he had fun buying some and I enjoyed that. Since then, he has taken pictures and I then put them on our artknives.com website.

After several years of working with pictures of all of these beautiful jewels, I gained a real appreciation for the artistry of the knives. The work that goes into each one of these art knives is incredible. The knife artists are as serious about their craft as any other artists, or maybe even more serious.

And I also started to understand the attraction. They are a type of jewelry for men who don’t wear jewelry, or another type of jewelry for men who do. And knives are Art and Fine Craft.
They are more intricately crafted than my favorite American Fine Craft store earrings, and with great mechanics. How can any man resist?
I can’t resist great hand-crafted jewelry…

And now, I don’t mind planning vacations around knife shows… In fact, I like it.
We just returned from the New York Knife Show, where the knives were really nice.
Fred got me a beautiful knife neckace. But we need a better picture.
Thank you, Fred,
Sharon

In my studies of early American crafts I came across a great poem by the late Reverend John Pierpont paying homage to the importance of the pocket knife in colonial America.
After all, in the seventeen hundreds, most things were crafted in wood and/or iron. A pocket knife was a very prized possession to any young man of that time for carving furniture, skinning, whittling to make toys, or just to pass the time.
This is, perhaps, one of the many aspects of “learned memory” that call us to the lure of the knife.

Home Life in Colonial Days
The Rev. John Pierpont wrote thus of the whittling of his childhood days: __

”The Yankee boy before he’s sent to school
Well knows the mysteries of that magic tool__
The pocket-knife. To that his wistful eye
Turns, while he hears his mother’s lullaby.
And in the education of the lad,
No little part that implement hath had.
His pocket-knife to the young whittler brings
A growing knowledge of material things,
Projectiles, music, and the sculptor’s art.
His chestnut whistle, and his shingle dart,
His elder pop-gun with its hickory rod,
Its sharp explosion and rebounding wad,
His corn-stalk fiddle, and the deeper tone
That murmurs from his pumpkin-leaf trombone
Conspire to teach the boy. To these succeed
His bow, his arrow of a feathered reed,
His windmill raised the passing breeze to win,
His water-wheel that turns upon a pin.
Thus by his genius and his jack-knife driven
Ere long he’ll solve you any problem given;
Make you a locomotive or a clock,
Cut a canal or build a floating dock:
Make anything in short for sea or shore,
Make it, said I__ay, when he undertakes it,
He’ll make the thing and make the thing that makes it.”

The boy’s jack-knife was a possession so highly desired, so closely treasured in those days when boys had so few belongings, that it is pathetic to read of many a farm lad’s struggles and long hours of weary work to obtain a good knife. Barlow knives were the most highly prized for certainly sixty years, and had, I am told, a vast popularity for over a century. May they forever rest in glorious memory, as they lived the happiest of lots! To be the best beloved of a century of Yankee boys is indeed an enviable destiny. A few battered old soldiers of this vast army of Barlow jack-knives still linger to show us the homely features borne by the century’s well beloved: the Smithsonian Institution cherishes some of colonial days; and from Deerfield Memorial Hall are shown three Barlow knives whose picture should appear to every American something more than the presentment of dull bits of wood and rusted metal. These Yankee jack-knives were, said Daniel Webster, the direct forerunners of the cotton-gin and thousands of noble American inventions; the New England boy’s whittling was his alphabet of mechanics.

From Home Life in Colonial Days by Alice Morse Earle, Copyright, 1898, by The Macmillan Company

Lately I have become interested in open sheaths such as the antique head hunters sword , and by the open sheaths and knives by Jay Fisher. At the Knifemaker’s Guild show 2005, Jay Fisher’s open sheaths were just the inspiration I needed to make sheaths for the knives I have by Steven Licata. I finished my first of many in this style last week, which can be seen under Steven Licata on my Art Knives website.

Leather Knife Sheaths
A sheath is both a functional case to carry a knife and a frame to complete and enhance the picture.
The first knife sheaths I made were back in 1963, they were holders for leather tools. I was 14 years old. Since the pocket knives I carried have always been small enough to just carry in my pocket, I didn’t need a carry sheath. When I started skinning at 18 that changed. For both fun and practicality I started making many different style sheaths for the two primary knives I used.
The knife I carry most often now is a 10cm. folding Laguiole knife with a fisher space pen attached by its side.
Since I have had a retail shop for the past 30 years, my motto is “the pen is mightier than the sword”, and I always wear this as a neck knife and pen sheath. I often carry this same two-way leather sheath on my belt when not at the shop or trade shows.

I really enjoyed meeting Richard Van Dijk from New Zealand. His traditional style with a contemporary touch takes tools from his native culture and presents it as art in our present culture. With all the integrity of the originals, he hand forges, carves, and casts his own futuristic and fantasy elements, creating great knives.
More about this knife on my Art Knives website.

I started this blog to post thoughts mostly on knives, which I collect and sell, and on leather, since I ‘ve been doing leatherwork for most of my life for a living.

When I was a kid (age 12), I took up the hobby of leatherwork. This was my first introduction to sharp objects. I have been fascinated with knives and tools ever since.
Some of my favorite knives to this day are leatherworking tools. There are different knives for specific purposes, straight cutting, skiving ( thinning down from the back ), trimming, and tooling leather. Form following function is always the goal.