At the Blade Show in 2003, I stood in awe as a handful of ABS Mastersmiths competed in a cutting competition. Later that year at the First Annual Moran Hammer-In, again I found myself as a spectator to a cutting competition. This time, however, Jerry Fisk came to me and asked me to compete. I did not come prepared and had to turn down the offer. I promised myself that I would never again be "just a spectator". That night, I could not sleep, hundreds of kideas racing through my head regarding just what kind of knife would make an excellent competition knife. The next morning I was up early and headed to the Hammer-In to forge my "dream knife". It took nearly 4 hours to get it just right - tapered blade, tapered tang, double-finger-grooves, and so on. This is the knife I made and it has performed well at every competition I have entered since.

It's no beauty queen - it's mean for testing only. I started with 1/4" thick barstock and put a full convex grind on it - the middle is thicker than the spine. Also, since most competition knives are bowie patterns - I figured I'd have a leg up in the chopping event by not removing so much material at the tip. That logic proved correct.

The handle is ironwood with a satin finish and is very comfortable in-the-hand. On the blade, I left the hammer marks as proof of its forged origin. Somebody remarked that this golok-patterned knife with it's rough face actually looks kinda like a whale, which led me to name it "Lil' Moby".

It is very sharp and requires little maintenance.