A Baton Rouge Man Is Known Worldwide for the Quality of His Knives

Kids’ favorite back-to- school recipes on page 9. VOL. 88, No. 16 www.ldaf.state.la.us August 4, 2005 A Baton Rouge man is known worldwide for the quality of his knives. He makes a tthhee blade so sharp it will cut through a UUTTTTIINNGGbundle of 16 one- CC inch ropes in a single swipe. Try that with your big-box Bowie eeddggee knife. By Sam Irwin hat’s it like to be the best in the ago when he wanted to modify a favored ver, put some stones on it and stuff, but you Sparks illuminate the dirt floor below as he world? The best runner? The best Gerber knife. can’t get their handles off because they’re cast runs the croc hunter under the grinding belt. cyclist? The best craftsman? “I was teaching hand-to-hand combat to the on.” Satisfied with the progress, Ki dips the blade Baton Rouge custom knife East and West Baton Rouge police departments Ki called the venerable knife manufacturer to into a bucket of cool water and wipes the steel WmakerW Shiva Ki knows. on how to take away a knife, how to use a knife discuss his idea, but Gerber was slow to on his pants leg. His custom blades may be the best in the against a guy while he’s still got it in his respond. Skulls, taboos and a fierce Rottweiler protect world. hands,” Ki said. “I had a Gerber Mark-II but I “Gerber said they would give me a few Ki’s shop and backyard. A hand-painted sign, A Ranger paratrooper with the 101st didn’t like the handle on it. blades to customize if I promised not to re-sell worded in German with “!Achtung! Airborne, Ki started making knives 25 years “I wanted to make my own handle out of sil- them,” Ki grinned. “I said, ‘Too late. I started Mörderisch Hunds!” warns unwanted visitors making my own knives now.’ So blame of Ki’s watchdogs. The warning literally trans- Gerber.” lates to “Attention: Murderous Hounds!” Hundreds of handmade custom knives later, Ki gives the dog silent hand signals. Ki has elevated his knife making craft to an art. “There’s nothing like a well-trained dog,” he At any given moment, Ki is working on a murmurs. number of knife projects at his modest north Inexplicably, Ki also has a turkey and a ban- Baton Rouge home. Pieces of dusty iron and tam chicken in the pen along with the steel casually litter his garage machine shop. A Rottweiler. 36-inch sawmill blade leaning against the shop Perhaps to someday test a blade’s efficacy? wall is missing a diagonal pie-shaped section. “Nah, I couldn’t eat my friends,” Ki said. “I “Bearing steel is the best steel to make a love birds.” knife. The whole world runs on bearings,” Ki, a Zen Buddhist, has placed inconspicu- observed Ki. “But saw blade steel is the sec- ous Buddhist trappings around his household. ond-best.” A photo of Ki meditating dominates a wall In one dark corner of his shop rests the drag- loaded with framed mementos and newspaper on, Ki’s gas and coal-fired forge. clippings. A tiny Buddha occupies an honored “I’ll start up the fire. Once the propane is place in the middle of the top shelf of a glass burning I flick the switch and it goes ka- bookcase. woosh,” Ki said. “It starts belching like a drag- Then there are the knives. Beautiful blades, on. I call it the dragon breath.” razor sharp edges, flesheaters are everywhere. Opposite the dragon rests a grinder adorned From antique Samurai swords mounted on with a number of wheel attachments and belts. beautiful lacquered Oriental stands to a variety He flicks on a clip-on light. Two unfinished of edges under glass, all are seemingly within knives rest on a flat surface near the grinder. Ki arm’s reach. Long pieces of steel with patterns Shiva Ki uses a power hammer (above) to blend steel destined to become one of has yet to mount a handle to the knife’s skele- drawn on them, the birth of future blades, are his ultra-sharp Spirit Blade knives. Ki’s forge, dubbed the dragon breath, can ton. clamped into vises or laid on counters. reach steel-melting temperatures. African wart hog tusk and ossic (petrified “These are croc hunters,” Ki explained. Ki’s elegant blades are completed with exot- bone) (top) make for an exotic handle of Ki’s Trailing Point hunting knife. “They are similar to a Bowie knife. See Cutting edge, page 2 Page 2 MARKET BULLETIN August 4, 2005 Cutting edge, continued from page 1 ic handcrafted handles of ebony, ivory and rare scalpel sharp. scalpel edge to a knife, he first builds a sheath guy and the hair starts jumping off his arm and South American snakewood. He also used “You’re only supposed to have hard steel or of exotic wood or leather. he runs yelling, ‘Oh, don’t cut me.’” 50,000 year old fossilized wooly mammoth soft steel in a knife. You can’t have both,” Ki Pointing to a 4-inch scar on his thigh, Ki Whether the hair starts jumping off or not, ivory for grips. The grips may be lined with said. “The clay mass delays the quench” learned the hard way to complete every aspect one thing is certain, Ki’s blades are impossibly water buffalo or stingray hide and trimmed in The quench is the hardening process of of the knife before edging the blade. sharp. Japanese raw silk. The decorations make the immersing the heated blade in oil to rapidly “I’m so stupid,” Ki said. “For years I’d finish Last year, noted French knife expert/journal- knife beautiful, but the real artistry is in the cool the steel. a knife. It was ist Dominique blade. “By the time the quench gets to that part of sharp. Done. Beaucant Ki admitted it took him four years to learn the steel, the molecular structure has Finished. And For a story on “Flesh Eaters: filmed a cut- how to sharpen his blades but once he mastered rearranged into a lower granular level. The then I’d make Shiva Ki Tactical Knives” go to ting exhibition the skill his blades became cutting machines. molecular structure of steel goes through many the sheath. I’m with Ki’s “Well-known and respected American changes at different temperatures. So you got trying to draw http://www.military.com/sol- famous 10- Bladesmith Society (ABS) master bladesmith spring steel underneath the clay and hard-as-a- the pattern diertech/0,14632,Soldiertech_Shi inch Spirit Jim Crowell studied my edge under the micro- chisel steel on the exposed portion. You can around the knives. scope trying to figure out how in the hell I do keep your steel much harder without it break- knife onto the va,,00.html Beaucant bun- it,” Ki said. “Why my knives cut so good and ing because the stress is absorbed by the softer, leather and I’d dled 16 one- keep cutting.” springier heart of the steel.” be cutting pencils in half. inch ropes into a single thick strand and began So how does he do it? Without a trace of But the entire knife making process is more “It took me years to figure out how dumb that slicing. Not hacking. Not sawing. Slicing. irony, Ki flatly states, “I’ve got the enigma than forging a unique blend of metal. was and not sharpen the knife until I was com- According to Ki’s website (www.shivakicus- thing going that clay tempering gives me.” After cutting the raw steel into the basic knife pletely done with everything else. That way tomknives.com), Beaucant cleanly cut the bun- He said the special clay-tempered technique design, Ki rough grinds the blade to 80 percent you can’t possibly hurt yourself. You can draw dle of 16 ropes eleven times. Immediately he favors combines laminated hard and soft of its final edge using a Wilton square-wheel around it without cutting the end off your pen- afterwards, with the same knife, Beaucant steels to make a super-durable knife that is grinder. cil and stuff.” chopped up a bunch of two-by-fours. Just like “You’ve got hammer marks in He shook his head in wonderment. butter. the steel that you got to grind “Sometimes even a genius is a stupid s.o.b.” After the amazing demonstration Beaucant out,” Ki said. “You straighten He held up a pattern of a knife he calls the A- wrote in a 2004 issue of Tactical Knives, everything up and get the nice Tac, a folding knife with a graceful curve. He “Every Shiva Ki blade I’ve tested, was incred- straight clean lines.” has already made a number of mental calcula- ibly sharp, dangerously sharp. How can this The rough grind is followed by tions refining the design. man make knives so sharp? Master Ki’s knives a heat treatment at temperatures “I’m going to take a little bit off the top to are the sharpest I’ve ever tested. Every one a ranging from 1450 to 1550 F. make it sleeker,” he said. “That’s a wicked flesh eater.” “I can melt steel in my forge,” s.o.b. The handle’s going to be sculpted so you So in order to make a super-sharp blade all Ki said, which is important in the can hang on to it real good.

Load more