B&B Custom Knives

**  Sadly Barney has passed away and B&B Knives is no longer making knives.**
Everyone needs a good knife.  A solid pocket knife is always useful for all kinds of daily tasks, opening mail, cutting an apple for a snack, cleaning your nails, whittlin, and a slew of other things we do every day.  When you are camping or hiking a good knife is essential.  In dire times a good knife can be the difference between life and death.  There are hundreds of knife manufacturers and blade smiths out there who make some amazing blades and they come in all shapes and sizes.  Locally here to Charleston we have our share as well but I want to let you in on a local secret.  B&B Custom knives. 

Owned and operated by Barney Hudson and Bob Wright, this team creates some of the most solid, sharpest and well-designed knives I have ever used.  Their motto is “If we can’t make it, you don’t need it!”  I agree with this 100%.   Not traditional blade smiths, their knives are not forged from raw steel, but are cut, shaped and sharpened from existing steel.  Using files, saw blades, tool steel and other varieties of steel they repurpose old steel and give it new life.  While some of their blades are softened to be shaped they are quenched again and made as hard as ever and hold an edge like no other blade I have owned or used.  From Machetes, to filet knives you can shave with, to skinners, to giant pig stickers and even a few hatchets and tomahawks, they are only limited by their, or your, creativity.  They can literally make pretty much anything you can come up with.  Their machetes are bad to the bone and they have literally cut other big name makers blades in half with their machetes.

One of the things I have always wanted to do is make my own knife.  I had a very specific idea of the blade profile and what I would use it for so I stopped in and talked to Bob and Barney they welcomed me with open arms and showed me the ropes.   I drew out my profile and we talked about how we would do it.  I selected an old sawmill blade and drew out my blades outline on the steel.  The rust and dents on the blade told me this blade had been used a long time and I was going to help give it new life.  Using a band saw I roughed out the shape and fine-tuned it a little.  I wanted to make a primitive bush knife to be used for hunting, camping and hiking.  An all-purpose knife for outdoors adventures.  Once I had the rough shape Bob showed me how to use the grinders to clean it up and get the blade to its final shape.  

Once I had the shape where I wanted it, I drilled holes for the handle and chose the material.  At first I thought of a synthetic material, but a block of Osage orange wood spoke to me.  I carefully traced the handle outline onto the wooden blanks and cut them out on a band-saw.  Carefully lining up the handles I drilled the holes in the wood so they would match up to the metal.  Each step of the way Bob explained what needed to be done, why, and how to do it.  The handle was roughed out and ready to be applied.  The edge was next.  

Barney showed me the way to put a razors edge on the blade without burning the tip of the metal in general.  Slowly the plunge line appeared and the edge grew along the edge and down the blade.  Slowly and carefully Barney showed me some tips and tricks to ensure my edge was consistent, and it mirrored itself to the other side of the blade.  Soon I had a razor in my hands.  It cut through phone book paper like it wasn’t there.  I went back to my handles, I cut the pins and made sure everything fit right and then epoxied the handles down. 

I let it cure overnight and the next day I returned to my knife.  The handle was solid and set.  It was a rough shaped chunk of wood wrapped around the steel of my blade and now I needed to pull its final shape out of it.  I set to work on the grinders.  Heavy course grit belts ripped away the big chunks of extra material, I progressed to finer grit belts and got the shape down, rounded the edges and made the wood and tang of the knife fit my hand.  I gouged too deep a few times and had to adjust the fit but eventually it was the right size and fit my hand perfectly.  I hand sanded it to its final finish and stepped back.  I was exactly what I wanted.  The shape wasn’t exactly what I planned but the subtle tweaks here and there had made it better than I originally envisioned. 

Bob and I pulled out some Kydex and began the sheath.  He is the sheath master.  Kydex, leather, you name it and he will make a sheath that not only fits the blade perfectly but will be functional and last for years to come.  Cutting it to size, heating it up and then forming it around the blade and handle.  When it cooled down I drilled the holes for the rivets and sanded the final shape.  Barney showed me how to put a final hone on the edge and it was time to test it out.  I went to the bench and sliced phone book paper better than before, the blade easily sliced through it with zero effort.  I then took it outside and began to chop a 1x4 board in half.  The blade bit deeply time after time and within seconds I had cleaved the lumber in half.  I looked at the blade carefully.  There was no damage.  No chips, no rolls, no flat spots.  Back to the phone book and it sliced the paper like it did before.  It was like a razor.  

I was ecstatic!  This chunk of metal was about five hours before just a blank cut from an old mill blade and it was now my new survival, camping, hunting knife and it was perfect.  Well to me anyways.  It is not as pretty as most blades, it still has the small pits from the old blade on some parts of it.  The handle fits perfectly to my hand but has some staining on it.  I did not forge the steel, drawing it out to its final shape and length but I had taken something and created a new blade, sharp, strong and ready to take on any task I wanted to.  

My blade from start to finish

My next adventure will be to forge a blade, but that is another story for another time.  If you’d like to see some of B&B’s knives and see them in action check out their website at B&B Custom Knives and follow them on Facebook.  

Give them a call, (843) 509-7694, and they can set you up.  Remember, if they cant make it… you don’t need it!