So this involves a bit of a story. Bear with me, as I considered making this its own thread but I think it fits here just fine.
A few years ago, a second cousin of mine was diagnosed with leukemia. To fund her medical care, her family hosted a benefit at a local roadhouse bar which included a raffle and auction. As part of the latter, a distant relative/family friend and the subject of the story who I'll call M forged a custom knife free of charge and donated it to be auctioned off for the benefit.
This was it:
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I'll spare you the details on this particular blade for a reason that will become obvious in a bit, but something that these images don't do justice but was very obvious in person at the auction: the pattern-welded/"Damascus" pattern on the blade was unlike anything I've ever seen. Whereas most are a sort of charcoal black with waves of white-silver, this one instead had waves of a coppery-bronze color interspersed through the sea of black. It was absolutely
gorgeous. The knife came to be aptly known as the
Copperhead. As I later discovered upon meeting and chatting with Mickey, the story behind the Copperhead's unique coloration was entirely accidental: he basically had a Three Stooges moment and spilled a bunch of powdered copper into the forge during the smelting process, resulting in it becoming part of the faux Damascus billet. He thought he'd just ruined the blade, but it ended up making for a novelty piece that sold for a very pretty penny.
I wanted that knife bad at the auction -- it was awesome and I'd get to support my cousin. What's not to love? However, I hadn't anticipated the knife being up for grabs and hadn't brought cash. I scrambled to the ATM... but it was completely out. I was out of luck. Had to watch some other lucky man walk out with the piece. A few weeks later, I got in touch with M and talked about getting him to make a similar knife for me. He agreed to make it minus the copper accent to the blade (for a variety of reasons), which was fine by me. I ended up paying a little over $400 for it, if I recall. This is what I ended up with:
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The blade is 5.3" long and hand-forged from 500 layers of various high-carbon steels (pattern-welded, of course). The handle is lacquered maple burl wood. The guard, butt cap, and spacers are all 100% pure copper. The large central spacer is water buffalo horn. He also crafted the sheath for me: just hand-tooled basketweave leather -- nothing special, but functional and good-looking.
M had no formal blacksmith training. He was a self-taught hobbyist who picked it up for fun and basically just about covered his expenses, plus maybe a bit of extra spending money here and there in addition to his day job. He appeared on History channel's
Forged in Fire in early 2019, finishing in 1st place on his episode against other blacksmiths with considerably more training and experience than his own.
However, several weeks ago, he was suddenly and unexpectedly struck by a massive heart attack and passed away. I didn't know him as well as I would have liked beyond our transaction and interactions at family gatherings, but I know he was a great guy and I'll always look at the knife he crafted for me fondly. It holds a special place in my safe.