par deovolens » 30 Oct 2012 17:55
Je suis un fan de Burt Forster qui dit
Here is a list of ideas and theories that constitute much of my overall knifemaking philosophy:
1. A knife should be designed above all things as a tool.
2. A knife’s essential value is that though it is seldom the best tool for the job, it is a tool that is capable of doing a wide variety of jobs well. So a knife, though it may be designed for a specific job, should be capable of doing other jobs as well. Example: If you want to split wood, use an axe. If you want to open an envelope, use a letter opener. If you want to clean your fingernails, use a fingernail cleaner. If you want to have one tool that does all three jobs, use a knife.
3. A knife should be comfortable to hold in several positions, because the versatile nature of a knife dictates that the ultimate use of the knife cannot be anticipated, and therefore, allow the tool as much flexibility as possible.
4. A knife needs to be sharp, needs to stay sharp, and when it’s dull, it should be easy to re-sharpen. More than just sharp at the edge, a knife should be designed to cut in a natural, effortless way. This statement affects everything from steel selection to heat treatment to edge geometry.
5. A knife should be strong enough to survive any real-world challenge and not break.
My knifemaking philosophy is constructed around a bull’s-eye concept. In the center are the jobs that the knife was designed for. In the next ring are jobs that the knife was not designed for, but for which it is likely to see. In the outer ring are jobs that the knife was not designed for and is not likely to see.
The bull’s-eye concept says that the knife needs to be able to handle as many jobs in the two outer rings as possible without sacrificing it’s ability to do the tasks in the inner ring.
For instance, let’s say we are making a hunting knife. The knife is designed to cut through skin, muscle, and connective tissues. It will have to cut through dirty fur and remove tissue attached to bone. It must cut cleanly with only a light touch. It should be comfortable to use and easy to hold in several positions. Finally, it should stay sharp throughout the entire process of cleaning an animal, and re-sharpen easily when necessary with a minimum of tools. This description is the inner ring for a hunting knife. It should do all these jobs very well, and frankly, it should excel at these jobs.
In the next ring, we will find jobs like: cutting rope, opening boxes, cleaning fingernails, emergency field surgery, cutting vegetables, splitting small kindling and whittling a stick. The knife should be able to do all the jobs in the second ring also, even though these are not tasks for which the knife was designed.
In the outer ring may be things like, cutting through a car door, hammering nails, etc. These are not only jobs for which the knife was not designed, but also things it will not likely see. Some jobs in this outer ring can damage the knife if the jobs are extreme. The knife should be designed to survive as many tasks as possible in this ring without failure. However, these design elements should never adversely affect the function of the knife in its primary roles described in the center ring. For instance, a knife can be designed for heavy prying or use as a screwdriver, but a thick, heavy tip would be hinder the knife’s use as a delicate tool for most cleaning and skinning tasks. If we were designing a knife for opening paint cans and chipping through large blocks of ice, then that would be in the center ring and the delicate tasks associated with a hunting knife would probably be in the outer ring.
So, if we’re making a hunter, I make it the best hunting knife I can, and then I sneak in little design features (like differential heat treatment and certain edge geometries) that do not adversely affect its use as a hunting knife, but give the blade greater versatility in handling chores outside of its intended scope.
Another area that is part of my knife design philosophy is the look and visual “flow” of the knife. There are two important reasons why a knife should look good as well as work well. The first is that when paying good money for a handmade knife (or anything else for that matter), it needs to look sharp (no pun intended). It should draw attention to itself and its owner. As a customer said to me, “I want a knife that when I’m sitting around the fire in a hunting camp and someone sees my knife, it looks like something special and they want to see it.”
There’s another reason a knife needs to look good. You’ve probably heard a chef say of food, “You eat with your eyes first.” That means that if food looks good on the plate, it’s more likely to taste good than food that looks bad. My wife sometimes makes mashed potatoes with green food coloring in them on St. Patrick’s Day. I don’t know, but they just don’t seem to taste right. The same goes with knives. A knife that looks right and has all its elements in proper proportion and relationship to one another just seems to work better. I don’t know whether it’s psychological or if relating all those elements properly really contributes to performance. Either way, I have noticed it time and time again, and that is why the look of the knife really is as important as anything else. Now, that doesn’t mean expensive materials. You can put a pretty Damascus blade and ivory together on a knife and if it’s a bad design, it will still look wrong.
Once all the facets of a well designed and executed knife are in place, then a knife can be dressed up in whatever way necessary to please both the maker’s sense of creativity and artistry and the customer’s desire for function and beauty.
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