Clint Knives
1261 Keats Street
Manhattan Beach, Ca 90266
(310) 372-0739
or e-mail at breshears2@earthlink.net
Clint Knives
My knives, both straight and folding, are working patterns which are time tested. Bob Loveless provided early guidance and many of my designs have his influence. I believe that knives are working instruments and should be sharp and stay sharp as long as possible. I use ATS 34 stain resistant high carbon tool steel which provides excellent edge retention. My designs are mostly hollow ground on various size wheel radius to allow for ease of resharping and better cutting with lower resistance in the cut.
I do not forge my own Damascus and do not use that forged by others due to the inconsistency in many of the products for sale. I will grind on special order blades from customer supplied Damascus but do not feel it add anything to my line of working and using knives. I use a wide variety of handle material: woods; micartas, stag or bone. I feel the best natural material available for a knife handle is stag, it provides the mixture of beauty and strength which hard to equal. I take custom orders for any knife design and will work to drawings, sketches, or verbal ideas, which I will draw and provide for approval. Each non folding knife is provided with a sheath. I build each knife as if it were for my personal use. I only require a deposit on very specialized knives which would be difficult to resale to another collector or user.
I thank you for your interest in my knives. Please feel free to contact me either by e mail or phone with any questions or special requests. I would love to make you the knife of your dreams. At the end of the page is an update list of where I will be displaying. Hope to see you there.
Biographical info
My name is George Clinton "Clint" Breshears, I use the trademark "CLINT" on my knives which is a shortened version of my middle name, and the middle name of my father, my grandfather and my son. When I seriously started making knives, I was working at Cape Canaveral, Fl as a Space System launch officer for the Air Force. I have always had a knife, you know it is a requirement for all boys from Texas. After meeting Bo Randall and hanging around his show room and making daily contact with Will Pass, a Knifemaker’s Guild member who also worked at the Cape, I was hooked and started grinding knives in my mobile home’s spare bedroom. The Air Force reassigned me from the Cape to Los Angeles, Ca where I worked until my 20 years retirement. LA is a hot spot for excellent knifemakers and the California Knifemakers Association, "Cal Knives", gave me the chance to learn from the best. I was accepted into the Knifemaker Guild in 1984 and found it to be the graduate school of knifemakers.
I enjoy knifemaking and do it as much as I can. It is a great relief from my technical, high stress full time job. Part time knifemaking is the best of all worlds, producing knife which are inherently useful, beautiful to look at, and sold to partially support my knifemaking habit, enabling me to make more knives. I enjoy making all kind of knives, large to small in all shapes and functions. I like folding knives but only make a few a year mostly special orders. I will continue to make knives as long as I am able because I love them and I also love the people associated with the interest, I have often said, "if I had all the money in the world I would just keep making knives until it was all gone but I would have fun".
My working knives are priced to allow any one who really wants a custom knife to have one. I like to hear from my customers who have used their knives. One of my customers is a taxidermist who uses his knives daily in his profession and wrote to tell me how much he loves the two he has. These comments make it even more worth while. I know my work will be around long after I am gone and that feels GREAT.
Knife Information
I will use any steel specified or provided to make a custom knife but I prefer to use ATS 34 steel for my blades. ATS 34 holds a superior edge, is stain resistant, and can be polished to a high gloss, making it less prone to rust because a smoother and flatter surface provides less surface area. ATS 34 is difficult to grind and polish, but the higher tempering temperature (~1000° F ) allows it to be final ground and polished with out any hardness reduction which can occur in lower temper temperature steels during grinding and polishing. I prefer hollow ground for working knives because they provide less surface resistance when cutting and the hollow ground design allows the knife to be sharpened a large number of times before the thickness of the knife changes. I often "over grind blades" i.e. cause the hollow grind to extend beyond the top of the blade, on smaller knives to provide a thinner blade to get the proper cutting angle.
I make flat ground knives which do have superior strength but remember that a knife is mainly a cutting instrument and should not be routinely used for heavy chopping. The flat ground design increases in thickness as it is sharpened and needs to be reground to maintain the proper edge geometry.
I use many handle materials both natural and manmade to suit the individual preference. I use stainless steel bolster and hilts because of the way they maintain their beauty. I epoxy and bolt or pin handles to fixed blade knives to ensure they stay in place during long use. Folding knives are pinned or bolted only due to their intended use and to allow them to be reworked if required.
Straight knives are provided with a leather sheath, which is dipped in a mixture of stitching wax and Neatsfoot oil. A Kydex sheath is provided on some tactical designs and on special request.
All knives have my logo electro-etched into the blade. This process allows the blade to be marked as one of the final steps and prevents any stress build up which can be caused by stamping it into the blade manually. This trade mark is etched in very deep so it will be there as long as the knife is.
I guarantee my knives to be free from defects and to perform as expected under normal use. I will either repair the defect or refund your purchase price. All work will be agreed to in advance to prevent any misunderstanding. Damage caused by abuse or neglect will be corrected as best I can and a nominal charge may be required based on the condition of the returned knife.
Show Schedule: Where I will be displaying
6-7 Oct 2006- Evening at the Cutlery Arts Hunting Beach Hilton, Huntington Beach, Ca
Display Gallery: The following is a small example of the wide variety of knives I make
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