McBeth Knives was ‘born’ in 2012 when my son-in-law suggested that maybe I would enjoy making knives in some of my spare time since retiring from Real Estate. So, I began searching the Internet on “knife-making” and decided pretty quickly that I didn’t want to buy a forge and start hammering out metal on an anvil and working in front of a furnace all day. As an alternative, I began looking for quality “knife-blanks” that had been forged by a knife “maker” or manufactured by a reputable company.

I found several videos describing how to take a “knife-blank” and fashion a handle to it, describing all the steps necessary to create a beautiful and functional fixed blade knife. I found a company in North Carolina that designs and makes “knife-blanks” using only high grade  stainless steel in producing their “blanks”. (Some “blanks” out there are made with what is commonly called “junk-steel”; an inferior metal that has impurities and might not stand up to the standards that I had set for finishing out my knives.) Further investigation on finishing out a knife led me to want to use only “Exotic” woods for the handles because of their spectacular beauty in their grain. Some of these “Exotics” come from various countries and include Cocobolo, Zebrawood, Canarywood, Red Heart, Bocote, Leopardwood, Amboyna, Rosewood Burl, Padauk just to name a few.

Handles are secured to the knife with “pins”, so to further accentuate the knife I decided to create my own “pins” with “Mosaic” patterns to use when possible in my knives. The material I use for these pins include rods of Brass, Copper, Stainless Steel and Aluminum. I arrange the various sizes of these rods in patterns to create a ‘mosaic’ for each particular knife.

Damascus steel knives are very popular now and so I also finish out these when I can find a quality “blank” from a known “maker” or a supplier who provides quality Damascus.    Damascus patterns include Ladder, Raindrop, Twist, Herringbone just to name a few.  The “blanks” that I use are usually made from multiple bars of 1095 Carbon steel and multiple bars of high Nickel 15N20 steel creating between 175 and 250 layers in whatever pattern the “maker” decided.  No matter what “blank” I use, each of my knives are one-of-a-kind, custom finished. Most of my knives are Fixed-Blade and at the moment I don’t do Folders, but maybe in the future. A lot of my knife handles will include an embedded Masonic Square and Compasses Emblem for all my Masonic Brothers. The emblem distinguishes the knife from others as belonging to a Brother Mason. I am not aware of anyone else providing this unique service for a custom-finished knife. I hope you will consider purchasing one.
Thank you.

Jim McBeth