R.W. "Bob" Loveless | Master knife-maker, 81

R.W. "Bob" Loveless, 81, who made some of the world's most coveted sporting cutlery by refining knife design to high art, has died.

Mr. Loveless died Sept. 2 of lung cancer at his longtime home in Riverside, Calif., said his friend Jack Lucarelli.

"He is pretty much the Picasso of the knife world and the father of 20th-century knife-making," said John Denton, an authority on Loveless knives. "His design is what made him famous."

To many hunters, collectors, and fellow bladesmen, Mr. Loveless crafted the best handmade knives in the modern world. He was known for fixed-blade knives with unsurpassed workmanship.

In 1953, Mr. Loveless was a seaman on furlough when he tried to buy a blade by master knife-maker Bo Randall at Abercrombie & Fitch. Told there was a nine-month waiting list, Mr. Loveless later said he thought, "It can't be so hard," and decided to make his own.

Returning to his ship, he created his first knife from the steel spring of a 1930s Packard automobile, forging the blade on a galley stove.

He sold his first knives for $14 to Abercrombie & Fitch in 1954. When Mr. Loveless died, he was selling his knives for $5,000 to $20,000, said Edmund Davidson, a Virginia knife-maker.

- Los Angeles Times