After looking around for a knife to buy my girlfriend i came to the realization that women's knives are almost exclusively hot pink. Annoyed by this trend i got to work designing a knife for women that followed a few rules; it must be slender, light, non threatening, delicate but not dinky, and above all it must be practical.
First worked on a solidworks file to make sure everything would fit together perfectly, look correct, and this would allow for quick prototyping.
A set of laser cut acrylic prototypes that i passed around to various women in the Chicago loop so that i could find what worked and what did not.
I would have waterjet cut the parts, unfortunately the waterjet guy i was using was not very reliable. So using some laser cut templates i cut out the blade and spring by hand.
The cleaned up springs and blades.
Bevels ground
After heat treatment
Cleaned up blades after heat treatment.
Drilling into a jig i made for the handle scales.
Drilled rough finish handle scales.
Inside of the assembled blade
Close to finished knives.
Centered blades
After i finished the blades, i made a display case for my BFA show at SAIC.
Three blades in the final display case.
