As a knifemaker, I've found that there are certain knives that I like to make more than others. Miniatures of course being one of them. My background was jewelry to start with, so making small things was an easy enough aspect to get into, but miniature knives ended up being a completely different beast. The biggest problem I found with miniatures is the aspect ratio, whether making them in 1/3 or 1/4 scale, because you're not making a small knife, but a detailed version of a large knife. 

I've decided the best way to explain this, is by showing what I've made by separating my minis into two categories, first year and second year. I hope this'll show a decent progression of how new techniques learned over the years has affected the miniatures I've built.

First Year 

This was my very first two minis, a Bowie and puukko. The puukko was made into a necklace knife for my wife Jordan .

From the first two knives, I realized that my handles were too big, so I implemented that change into my next few knives.

Even after handle size adjustments, the aspect ratios were still off to me. So I decided to try simpler styles of knives for practice, slowly creating a muscle memory for the small grinds needed.

After getting a little more confident with my abilities, it was time to start playing around with what could be done in miniature.

This ended up being the last knife in my first year of miniatures, which only spread out over a 4 month period.

Second Year

After a hiatus of 7 months from anything resembling a miniature, I ended up with a custom order for a large kitchen knife. To work out the details, I made a mini version to see how it looked before diving into the fullsize version.

I didn't notice it at first, but something changed with how my miniatures looked. Maybe it was a finer attention to detail, but it was something that really affected their overall appearance. 

Over the last few months I've built less miniatures,  because I want everything in perfect scale. Oddly enough though, I spend more time invested in my miniature knives, than I would a regular sized knife.

This was one of my last minis, but it's become the standard now for which I hold all the new ones.

It's weird to see a lot of my knives put together like this, because it shows a progression of how my standards have changed in a short period of time, compared to being broken up over a period of years  in unrelated stories. Oh well, enjoy.

Charles