Forgive me if everyone's already figured this out and I'm just slow but maybe it'll help some others like it helped me. There are several shields that I would be very happy with as long as the proportions are correct for a knife this size. Darren
@waverave has done an absolutely fabulous job of giving up some mock ups on all the shields and woods but I know he is limited by not having exact dimensions on some of the shields and after studying the ones on GEC's shield catalog I can tell from measuring the ones that I have that they are not in correct proportion to each other in the GEC shield catalog at the beginning of this thread. Most of my information that I'm about to share comes from the thread dedicated to the 25 pattern. It would appear that they've made so many and used so many different shields on them that it was a source to gauge the proportions of the different shields. I did learn that there is two sizes of swell bar shields as you can see in the photos below that I borrowed from that thread. And by the way this gentleman has an absolutely beautiful collection. And it's very possible that there are multiple sizes of each shield that I'm just not aware of. I included several photos to try to give everyone that doesn't already have an idea of the proportions of each shield that we are considering. I'm thinking that the 25 pattern may be a little wider at the bolster than the 86 pattern but probably not so far off that it gives you a bad idea of the shield proportions. In measuring the shields that I have for reference, the hotdog shield is 13/16 inches long. So is the keyhole shield. The square bar shield that I have is 15/16 inches long. Which for me was the dead giveaway that the shields were not correctly proportion to each other in the catalog. As it is displayed smaller than the previous two. I originally voted banner shield but after studying things I'm afraid that it is just going to be too large for this knife. I like the Orleans shield and I like the bomb shield and I like the propeller shield for this knife. But in my opinion the bomb shield is going to be the best shield proportionally of the ones we get to choose from. And depending on your personal likes it may not necessarily be the best aesthetically. I like the Orleans shield but my imagination is telling me that it's going to be too small for this knife. I could be completely wrong. Hope this was some food for thought. If nothing else maybe we will learn of multiple sizes of each shield. A big thanks to Darren again for all his efforts.
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