lotfong
Tabarnak !!
BIO
Hi folks, let me introduce myself.
Brace yourselves thought, as there is quite a lot of stuff to read, you can pass on straight downwards to photos instead if this is not your cup of tea.
I simply felt it was important for me to write all these things down so people can understand better what's behind my work.
My name is Ludvig, I am a 27 year old guy from Quebec, Canada, and I am an aspiring bladesmith who has been doing it on and off for 10 years, but did delve seriously into it only a year and a half ago.
I have been also a sculptor by trade, documentary photographer and a circus stage builder for Cavalia, I have travelled quite a bit around the world and I am always curious about many different things of various origins, especially anything that relates to craftsmanship.
It was quite a weird, long path that led me here right now showing my first knives, long story short I wanted to make knives since I was 8 or 9 years old, and it always paced back and forth in my mind.
I had the opportunity to forge and make knives for the first time 10 years ago during my sculpture classes in art school.
As we had access to a forge and a teacher who was also a toolmaker and teached us basics of metallurgy and heat treatments, I got to make my hand at blacksmithing and got alright results under the supervision of my teacher.
In the years following my time there I repeated the experience on several occasions, but always while using very limited equipment and without proper preparation, so I always got mixed results in the end.
As I considered it mostly a small hobby I didn't push much more in that direction even thought I really liked doing it anyway, and the fact was still lurking in a corner of my mind that it could be something nice to do later on.
I got to do photography instead, which was a great passion of mine and became something that could have passed as a beginning of a career in that field then, and indeed brought many interesting opportunities, especially overseas.
But two years ago, a series of weird life events got me quite sick and put me in a pretty f***ed up state of mind, in a zone with a lot of free time and a deep void in front of me .
I wasn't working much anymore and relied on help from family and government and had just enough to get by, and was way too weak physically and mentally to go work as much as I used to do beforehand.
One thing I started to do as a manageable sideline was to do knife and woodworking tools sharpening.
8 years before that in my sculpture classes I learned to do it properly with waterstones, and I worked in restaurants for a good while afterwards to sustain myself and did sharpen occasionally my friends knives back then, who were always pleased with the results.
So as this was quite the only thing that I earned money with, I took as many sharpening and refurbishing jobs as I could, and after a while I got to be quite busy and I was having really good feedback on my work, I decided to push a little more towards that direction.
Surprisingly, my mind and body were geting increasingly better and my mood was getting much more joyful and got to enjoy life again as I was quite happy to do this sideline sharpening thing, sometimes for quite long hours without getting too tired, which was unusual considering my poor health at the time.
Also I got to take on much nicer jobs, like proper japanese handcrafted blades, which I knew about since a really long time but never had one in my hands before.
At first I refused these jobs as I was scared sh*tless of messing these up, but in the meantime I grew increasingly curious about the ins and outs of these type of blades and started to do web searching to be sure not only to quench my thirst of knowledge but also to try to take care of one blade I had in my posession from somebody who had an unusually great amount of faith in me regardless of my inexperience.
That is how I stumbled on this forum.
I have to acknowledge first and foremost the fact that I owe a good deal of my knowledge and motivation to push forward in the craft to this forum and all its members.
Little by little I gathered every bit of information I could like a working bee to make sure I was doing things proper, and fixed that blade for my trustful friend, which turned out quite good for a twisted chipped overground Takeda nakiri.
After a couple months daring to accept these kinds of jobs and sucessfully not messing them up I built myself a small reputation for this specific type of work in my hometown and had a lot of japanese blades passing on my bench for servicing.
And as I really loved working with these kind of blades, I then asked myself if I could try my hand at making one of similar fashion. I did forge knives before but japnese san mai is a whole other leage in therms of difficulty.
At least to do properly I mean.
I then spent at least a couple thousand hours reading various topics here for the last two years, and also got to connect with some makers popular here, who were really helpful with their well advised remarks and explanations.
I am thankful for their patience and willingness to share their wisdom, it is worth a whole lot for a rookie like me.
So that solidified my confidence to put my bollocks on the table and attempt it. I did start to do tests and experimentations with the little gear and materials I had.
And then Covid arrived.
I have since then tried to take the spare time I had that was caused by this global pandemic to put it to good use towards that direction anyway.
So I spent the last couple months to equip myself properly to make knives.
I had some gear and a very basic charcoal forge, but many things that are much more specific to bladesmithing that I had not in my posession were needed, and now I am quite proud to say that a couple thousand dollars, dozens and dozens of failed knives, pints of coffee, sweat and tears, cigarette cartoons, pile of old plywood, old pierced car shelter tarps, tons of sand, hundreds of kilometers on the road gathering stuff, a built up from scratch power hammer, hundreds of hours of help from friends and family and an awful amount of passion and perseverance later I have a functionnal workshop that helps me give birth to little (and not so little) sharp things.
So with all this being said, here is what I do.
Japanese styled san mai carbon steel blades.
Kurouchi, forged geometry (not a whole lot yet but still as much as I can, I am still a rookie), Cold forged, water quenched (or fast oil when necessary), Japanese natural stone polished.
I make my own san mai construction with either reclaimed mild steel or brand new bars of 1018 for the cladding, and use mostly water quenching steels like 26c3.
I do use sometimes Cruforge V for its edge retention and ease to work with, and love it for woodworking tools who don't need an awful lot of polishing.
I am greatly inspired by the likes of Will Catcheside, Bryan Raquin, Yanick Puig, Milan Gravier, Robin Dalman, Comet, the.9nine, Isasmedjan, Halcyon Forge, Jean Jose Tritz, Dan Prendergast, Heartwood forge and TwoSticks Forge amongst others.
This thread will show you what I do so far and will keep updated as I go.
It will also describe my process and reflexions about the craft.
I am not at a point right now where I would dare sell my knives, as I deem myself not mature yet for that, but I must acknowledge that I am extremely curious to have somme feedback from you guys, especially as I looked for info right here on this forum since the beggining and wonder if I did my "homework" well.
So there ya go, hope you guys will enjoy.
Best regards, Lotfong
(Here I am when I dwell in my natural habitat, doing what I must while feasting on my diet of nicotine)
Hi folks, let me introduce myself.
Brace yourselves thought, as there is quite a lot of stuff to read, you can pass on straight downwards to photos instead if this is not your cup of tea.
I simply felt it was important for me to write all these things down so people can understand better what's behind my work.
My name is Ludvig, I am a 27 year old guy from Quebec, Canada, and I am an aspiring bladesmith who has been doing it on and off for 10 years, but did delve seriously into it only a year and a half ago.
I have been also a sculptor by trade, documentary photographer and a circus stage builder for Cavalia, I have travelled quite a bit around the world and I am always curious about many different things of various origins, especially anything that relates to craftsmanship.
It was quite a weird, long path that led me here right now showing my first knives, long story short I wanted to make knives since I was 8 or 9 years old, and it always paced back and forth in my mind.
I had the opportunity to forge and make knives for the first time 10 years ago during my sculpture classes in art school.
As we had access to a forge and a teacher who was also a toolmaker and teached us basics of metallurgy and heat treatments, I got to make my hand at blacksmithing and got alright results under the supervision of my teacher.
In the years following my time there I repeated the experience on several occasions, but always while using very limited equipment and without proper preparation, so I always got mixed results in the end.
As I considered it mostly a small hobby I didn't push much more in that direction even thought I really liked doing it anyway, and the fact was still lurking in a corner of my mind that it could be something nice to do later on.
I got to do photography instead, which was a great passion of mine and became something that could have passed as a beginning of a career in that field then, and indeed brought many interesting opportunities, especially overseas.
But two years ago, a series of weird life events got me quite sick and put me in a pretty f***ed up state of mind, in a zone with a lot of free time and a deep void in front of me .
I wasn't working much anymore and relied on help from family and government and had just enough to get by, and was way too weak physically and mentally to go work as much as I used to do beforehand.
One thing I started to do as a manageable sideline was to do knife and woodworking tools sharpening.
8 years before that in my sculpture classes I learned to do it properly with waterstones, and I worked in restaurants for a good while afterwards to sustain myself and did sharpen occasionally my friends knives back then, who were always pleased with the results.
So as this was quite the only thing that I earned money with, I took as many sharpening and refurbishing jobs as I could, and after a while I got to be quite busy and I was having really good feedback on my work, I decided to push a little more towards that direction.
Surprisingly, my mind and body were geting increasingly better and my mood was getting much more joyful and got to enjoy life again as I was quite happy to do this sideline sharpening thing, sometimes for quite long hours without getting too tired, which was unusual considering my poor health at the time.
Also I got to take on much nicer jobs, like proper japanese handcrafted blades, which I knew about since a really long time but never had one in my hands before.
At first I refused these jobs as I was scared sh*tless of messing these up, but in the meantime I grew increasingly curious about the ins and outs of these type of blades and started to do web searching to be sure not only to quench my thirst of knowledge but also to try to take care of one blade I had in my posession from somebody who had an unusually great amount of faith in me regardless of my inexperience.
That is how I stumbled on this forum.
I have to acknowledge first and foremost the fact that I owe a good deal of my knowledge and motivation to push forward in the craft to this forum and all its members.
Little by little I gathered every bit of information I could like a working bee to make sure I was doing things proper, and fixed that blade for my trustful friend, which turned out quite good for a twisted chipped overground Takeda nakiri.
After a couple months daring to accept these kinds of jobs and sucessfully not messing them up I built myself a small reputation for this specific type of work in my hometown and had a lot of japanese blades passing on my bench for servicing.
And as I really loved working with these kind of blades, I then asked myself if I could try my hand at making one of similar fashion. I did forge knives before but japnese san mai is a whole other leage in therms of difficulty.
At least to do properly I mean.
I then spent at least a couple thousand hours reading various topics here for the last two years, and also got to connect with some makers popular here, who were really helpful with their well advised remarks and explanations.
I am thankful for their patience and willingness to share their wisdom, it is worth a whole lot for a rookie like me.
So that solidified my confidence to put my bollocks on the table and attempt it. I did start to do tests and experimentations with the little gear and materials I had.
And then Covid arrived.
I have since then tried to take the spare time I had that was caused by this global pandemic to put it to good use towards that direction anyway.
So I spent the last couple months to equip myself properly to make knives.
I had some gear and a very basic charcoal forge, but many things that are much more specific to bladesmithing that I had not in my posession were needed, and now I am quite proud to say that a couple thousand dollars, dozens and dozens of failed knives, pints of coffee, sweat and tears, cigarette cartoons, pile of old plywood, old pierced car shelter tarps, tons of sand, hundreds of kilometers on the road gathering stuff, a built up from scratch power hammer, hundreds of hours of help from friends and family and an awful amount of passion and perseverance later I have a functionnal workshop that helps me give birth to little (and not so little) sharp things.
So with all this being said, here is what I do.
Japanese styled san mai carbon steel blades.
Kurouchi, forged geometry (not a whole lot yet but still as much as I can, I am still a rookie), Cold forged, water quenched (or fast oil when necessary), Japanese natural stone polished.
I make my own san mai construction with either reclaimed mild steel or brand new bars of 1018 for the cladding, and use mostly water quenching steels like 26c3.
I do use sometimes Cruforge V for its edge retention and ease to work with, and love it for woodworking tools who don't need an awful lot of polishing.
I am greatly inspired by the likes of Will Catcheside, Bryan Raquin, Yanick Puig, Milan Gravier, Robin Dalman, Comet, the.9nine, Isasmedjan, Halcyon Forge, Jean Jose Tritz, Dan Prendergast, Heartwood forge and TwoSticks Forge amongst others.
This thread will show you what I do so far and will keep updated as I go.
It will also describe my process and reflexions about the craft.
I am not at a point right now where I would dare sell my knives, as I deem myself not mature yet for that, but I must acknowledge that I am extremely curious to have somme feedback from you guys, especially as I looked for info right here on this forum since the beggining and wonder if I did my "homework" well.
So there ya go, hope you guys will enjoy.
Best regards, Lotfong
(Here I am when I dwell in my natural habitat, doing what I must while feasting on my diet of nicotine)
Last edited: