An homage to 1918...
Why I Made the Trench Knife
The Doughboy 1918 came from nostalgia.
Not nostalgia for war, but for the courage, sacrifice and resolve of ordinary young men who were sent into extraordinary circumstances with very little preparation for what waited ahead.
A young American could be pulled from his normal life, given a short period of training, put on a train, shipped across the Atlantic and eventually find himself standing in the mud of France with a Springfield rifle, a bayonet and a trench knife.
That is where this project began.
I used the original 1918 knuckle knife as the inspiration for the shape, then cleaned up the geometry and made it more ergonomic. From there, I carried the design forward with elements from World War I, World War II and the modern era.
The brass handle gives it the weight and presence of something from another time. The titanium hardware was bronzed to complement it. The blade was double black oxided and sharpened razor sharp. The year 1918, the dates of the war and the Doughboy helmet were added to give the knife its identity and connect it directly to the men and the history that inspired it.
This is not intended to be a reproduction.
If you want a truly historical piece, get online and start searching for one.
If you want one that is an homage—a commemoration—that is what this is.
It is a nod to the past carried into the future. A knife that remembers the courage and tragedy of the First World War, the fighting knives of the Second World War and the reality that ordinary men have repeatedly been asked to do extraordinary things.
There is something about putting a knife like this in your hand. When you understand what it represents, it stops feeling like an inanimate object. It becomes a talisman. It creates a connection to something older, more serious and more instinctive.
That visceral feeling has always been at the center of my design philosophy.
Has this composition been done before?
I do not know. I do not care.
I made it because it speaks to me.
— Greg Medford
Features of The Knife
Top-Grain Cowhide Sheath
Cut and stitched to the 1918 profile. Black-dyed, full-thickness cowhide with brass snap hardware.