The Iron Bound

When I set out to build this, the goal wasn’t to make a flashy showpiece. It was to take everything I love about this craft and forge it into one blade. The Ironbound is a personal manifesto—a knife designed to be deeply complex in its construction, yet brutally simple in its final appearance.

The jacket and bolster are raw wrought iron, salvaged from an anchor chain made in the 1800s. Working that material is a direct nod to the blacksmiths who were moving that metal nearly two centuries ago with nothing but coal, a heavy hammer, and grit. But I didn’t just want a historical relic. I took that iron and wrapped it around a 200-layer damascus core I forged myself, tying it all together with 1084 shims to lock the carbon exactly where it belongs.

Profile-wise, this is a neo-traditional take on a knífr. That basic skeleton—a simple, guardless utility knife with a hidden tang—has been kicking around since the Viking age strictly because it works. But where a historical knífr relies on a flat Scandi grind, I broke the rules. I updated that ancient, proven silhouette with a hollow grind that cuts deep and stays wicked sharp, turning it into a much more aggressive slicer.

Capping it off with the dense, dark Wenge wood handle grounds the entire build in the heavy, gothic aesthetic I gravitate toward.

Specs:

• Blade Core: 200-layer custom Damascus

• Jacket & Bolster: 1800s wrought iron (salvaged anchor chain)

• Shims: 1084 high carbon steel

• Handle: Wenge Wood

• Style: Neo-traditional knífr

• Grind: Hollow ground

• Blade Length: 4.75″

• Blade Height: 1″

• Spine Thickness: 5/32″