As a kid of the 80s, Crocodile Dundee started my obsession, TIME FOR THE KNIFE!..

Fantastic story and even better knives! Definitely two heirloom pieces to have in the collection... :thumbup::thumbup:


Btw, ever played "knifey spoony?"... ;)
 
I'd forgotten knifey spooney, Czechmate. I'm glad you reminded me, else I would have lost if challenged!

BriantheBlade said:
THAT IS AWESOME!!! More pictures please! Maybe some action shots? I love the movie (nominated for the Academy Award for best original screenplay and one of the top grossing independent films of all time) and of course always loved the knife and I think you hit it on the head here its THE knife if it was designed to use and not just be seen congrats man!
Brian
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Well, since I'm home today with a severely swollen ankle/foot (fell hard down some stairs) I can't really do any "action" shots at the moment, but here's the obligatory knife-next-to-1911-and-tactical-light picture (Yes, I know it's a Commander...it happens to be convenient at the moment ;) ). Forgive the poor composition, I'm hopping around on crutches and the real camera and light tent are upstairs.



Funny how brand spankin' new this knife looks in this shot, as it has chopped, diced and sliced quite a bit. Part of that is the light, part the natural everything-resistance of 3V, and part is the fact that I've found that a white Scotchbrite pad with GunBrite paste on it does wonders for keeping knives looking good without changing the original scratch pattern. GunBrite is a neat product, by the way---an extremely mild abrasive but more aggressive than Flitz if you actually want to go after scratches. I think it's the same formula that MetalGlo polish used to be, before they started producing it overseas and "improved" it.
 
Those are gorgeous knives!!!

I've gotta say the thing I think is most brilliant is using the stacked micarta rings for the handle. You liked the look of leather, but didn't want it to split.... Brilliant idea! Nothing like the realization of a dream, man.
 
carbonsteelfan said:
Randall knives makes some thing close to this. I think its called a bear bowie; if my memory serves me right.
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I had checked out those Randall Made Bowies with leather & brass and the Sportsman Bowie seems closest to the OP's specs.

There are several Randall Made Bowies with the Smithsonian Bowie being the baddest bad boy and the "Little" models probably most practical.

  • Model 12 - Bear Bowie (8" x 0.25" - 15 oz.)
  • Model 12 - Little Bear Bowie (6" x 0.25" - 7-10 oz.)
  • Model 12 - Sportsman Bowie (9" x 0.25" - 16-18 oz.)
  • Model 12 - "Little" Sportsman Bowie (6" x 0.25" - 7-10 oz.)
  • Model 12 - Smithsonian Bowie (11" x 0.375" - 28-34 oz.)
  • Model 12 - Raymond Thorpe Bowie (13" x 0.25" - 20-22 oz.)
  • Model 12 - Confederate Bowie (11" x 0.25" - 18-22 oz.)
 
Smithsonian Bowie definitely closer than the Bear (which is much more of a fighting knife). Still wouldn't have had the fuller, the steel I wanted, or the handle design I wanted. No point paying $650 and waiting five years to get something you sort of want. Better to pay a little more, wait a good deal less, and get it exact. :)
 
If money is not an issue; l would.recommend you get Custom.knife maker Vaughn Neeley to make one for you. Its gonna be costly but he did recreate the Jimmy like classic Bowie knife which looks some thing like what you desire.l once bought a replica of the Crocodile Dundee knife from Untited cutlery but it was a cheap knock off
 
carbonsteelfan said:
If money is not an issue; l would.recommend you get Custom.knife maker Vaughn Neeley to make one for you. Its gonna be costly but he did recreate the Jimmy like classic Bowie knife which looks some thing like what you desire.l once bought a replica of the Crocodile Dundee knife from Untited cutlery but it was a cheap knock off
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Go back to the first post. He just had TWO beautiful customs handmade to his exact specs. Vaughn Neeley IS an awesome maker. But this guy already has his knives, and they're pretty amazing. And I can promise you they were not cheap, but well worth it, lol :).

Sam :thumbup:
 
t1mpani said:
Ever since 1986 in that theater, I've wanted that knife. With all of my progression in knowledge of design, materials (the original was stainless of some sort) and everything else, that big Marbles/Puma inspired Bowie just always sang to me. There were several over the years that used the name, frequently crappy knives advertised in the back of gun magazines, but they seldom looked much like the original. And, truth be told, the original had some (to my mind) flaws in terms of the design---I don't like pommels or guards that burst out of the handle at right angles, the original guard is kind of overly thick and poorly shaped in my opinion, the hollow-saber grind that only goes up like 1/2" on the original (on a blade that's around 2" wide) really makes for extremely poor cutting/chopping/big knife performance and a fragile edge, and I've never cared for sharpened swedges as I feel they (especially on an inside curve) are all but useless even if you ARE in a fight, and definitely not hollow ground ones as they needlessly weaken the tip.

So, a good while back, I decided to hit up one of my favorite knife makers, Lamont Coombs, and annoy the holy hell out of him by getting him involved in my perfected Dundee knife. I wanted 3V for the steel , stacked micarta discs for the handle (tiny nod towards the old Marble's leather handles but I don't want this to ever shrink or rot), silicon bronze for the guard and pommel since it's just better in every way than brass (except to work with) and a half-height saber convex grind, leaving plenty of room for the extra-wide fuller. A few tweaks to the size and shape to make it more useable and just flow better. I sent him a drawing, complete with dimensions, and told him that plus or minus 0.001" would be plenty accurate. :D Oh, and I wanted two of them, one to keep gorgeous and the other to actually murder saplings with, or a crocodile should one ever be attacking a mostly-naked blonde chick in front of me.

It took a long time---not because Lamont doesn't work hard, but because making two IDENTICAL knives out of such unforgiving, PITA materials takes a long time. I won't say how much it was---dreams aren't measured in dollars, anyway. I was just polishing a little tarnish off of the user's blade today and decided that it was time to post them. Lamont's picture taking abilities vastly exceed my own, so what I've included here are his originals.

I've had them for about a year now, or a little less. It's so unusual to receive something and have it be EXACTLY what you wanted. I've since taken the "ugly" one (inside joke, the one with the plainer sheath) and lugged it along on a hunting trip (if we'd gotten a shot, I WOULD have processed the animal with it), as well as numerous hiking trips, and loved carrying every ounce of it. With the swiveling, drop-loop sheaths it actually rides very nicely IWB, angled at 45 degrees at the five o'clock position and pointed at six...I can walk, climb, sit and it's never in my way, and with a jacket or untucked shirt you can't see any evidence of it; so no, I'm not terrorizing other outdoors lovers. I'm just finally carrying the knife that my eight year old self dreamed of those decades ago.

Original first, and then Lamont's effort. Big and heavy? Yes--but less so and more nimble than you think (the 440C version of this knife that's on the market right now is comparatively a joke, balance wise and everything else). Not the best design for a camp knife? No, but very capable and it brings much more joy to me than any more sensible full flat-ground drop point. I won't argue the merits of the movie on any kind of a critical basis--pretty much a fluff piece, but one of these days I'll watch it again, whilst doing exactly what my mother warned me against back then: playing with knives. I expect to enjoy myself thoroughly.

As always, my thanks to Lamont, one of the most talented knife makers I know (and I know a BUNCH), both for his hard work, and his patience with all my emails being typed in a phonetic-Aussie accent. :D

The original, and the perfected:
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Now ; that is a magnificent knife ! But l am curious. How is 3v in terms on taking and holding an edge ?
My experience is only limited to:
1) 420HC
2) 1095 carbon
3) VG-10
4) inox steel ( the kind used in swiss army knives)
5) 440c ( in only 1 knife : A Robert Parrish hollow handle survivor)
6)Damascus ( An.antique kukri)
How does.3v compare to these steels ?
 
Well, that debate can (and has) fill thousands of pages on forums, in books, etc. because "edge holding" is a decidedly less simple topic than it seems at first. Hold an edge doing what? Slicing in extremely abrasive media like cardboard, 440C will hold its edge far longer than say, 5160, due to 440C's greater abrasive resistance and large free carbides. Change the task to chopping/hacking through brush and 5160's superior ability to take impacts without fracturing will pull its edge holding well ahead of the comparatively brittle 440C. Of course, because of the smaller carbides in 5160, you can get it sharper (and easier) than 440C, so it'd make for a better razor blade to shave with...except for the fact that 5160's lack of corrosion resistance will contribute to rapid edge loss with all of that water/steam/etc. For that matter, M4 will smoke 420HC in extended cardboard cutting at equivalent hardness, unless of course the cardboard is wet...

And of course I'm leaving out geometry and heat treatments---5160 at 60HRC will hold an edge better than 440C at 56HRC in abrasive cutting. 440C at 58 HRC beats 1095 at 58HRC for abrasion, but 1095 can be taken well in excess of 60 HRC and will eclipse what 440C can do. It isnt just hardness, either---different methods of heat treatment will affect grain refinement in the finished product; some outfits/makers are better at a particular steel than others. As to geometry, a 40 degree (included) edge will stay sharper longer than a 30 degree edge, but the 30 degree edge will cut better than the 40 degree will, even for a little while after its started to become dull!

I'm not trying to be maddeningly obtuse, just giving a notion of how complicated this discussion really is. As to Damascus, it would depend what the steels were in the mix, as many makers mix high carbon steels with VERY low carbon steels (like A36--something you could never make a good performing blade out of) in order to give the etched pattern a lot of visual contrast, while others only mix grades of steel that will make good blades on their own, sacrificing some visual "pop" for better performance. Of course, the original laminating/folding/twisting of steels was often born out of only having a small amount of good steel and having to add to it to get the size of blade needed (the Japanese Katana was an example of this in resource-limited Japan).

But, all of that preamble out of the way, CPM (Crucible Powdered Metallurgy) 3V is a non-stainless (but fairly stain resistant) steel designed to exhibit good abrasion resistance and very high strength/impact toughness at high hardness. Not as tough as the true shock steels (S7, S5) it is generally considered to be in the toughness league of L6 and 5160, though it has superior corrosion and abrasion resistance to those steels, the former relatively comparable to D2, and the latter (in my experience) quite similar to A2 at the same hardness. It is harder to put a really fine edge on than any of the no/low alloy steels (1095, 1084, 5160) but not as hard as many high-carbon stainless steels like 440C, S30V, etc.

Check out Joe Talmadge's Steel FAQ---it's a little out of date in that many newer alloys aren't on it, but it's still an excellent resource.

These Bowles were heat treated to be in the 57-59 HRC range.
 
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t1mpani said:
Well, that debate can (and has) fill thousands of pages on forums, in books, etc. because "edge holding" is a decidedly less simple topic than it seems at first. Hold an edge doing what? Slicing in extremely abrasive media like cardboard, 440C will hold its edge far longer than say, 5160, due to 440C's greater abrasive resistance and large free carbides. Change the task to chopping/hacking through brush and 5160's superior ability to take impacts without fracturing will pull its edge holding well ahead of the comparatively brittle 440C. Of course, because of the smaller carbides in 5160, you can get it sharper (and easier) than 440C, so it'd make for a better razor blade to shave with...except for the fact that 5160's lack of corrosion resistance will contribute to rapid edge loss with all of that water/steam/etc. For that matter, M4 will smoke 420HC in extended cardboard cutting at equivalent hardness, unless of course the cardboard is wet...

And of course I'm leaving out geometry and heat treatments---5160 at 60HRC will hold an edge better than 440C at 56HRC in abrasive cutting. 440C at 58 HRC beats 1095 at 58HRC for abrasion, but 1095 can be taken well in excess of 60 HRC and will eclipse what 440C can do. It isnt just hardness, either---different methods of heat treatment will affect grain refinement in the finished product; some outfits/makers are better at a particular steel than others. As to geometry, a 40 degree (included) edge will stay sharper longer than a 30 degree edge, but the 30 degree edge will cut better than the 40 degree will, even for a little while after its started to become dull!

I'm not trying to be maddeningly obtuse, just giving a notion of how complicated this discussion really is. As to Damascus, it would depend what the steels were in the mix, as many makers mix high carbon steels with VERY low carbon steels (like A36--something you could never make a good performing blade out of) in order to give the etched pattern a lot of visual contrast, while others only mix grades of steel that will make good blades on their own, sacrificing some visual "pop" for better performance. Of course, the original laminating/folding/twisting of steels was often born out of only having a small amount of good steel and having to add to it to get the size of blade needed (the Japanese Katana was an example of this in resource-limited Japan).

But, all of that preamble out of the way, CPM (Crucible Powdered Metallurgy) 3V is a non-stainless (but fairly stain resistant) steel designed to exhibit good abrasion resistance and very high strength/impact toughness at high hardness. Not as tough as the true shock steels (S7, S5) it is generally considered to be in the toughness league of L6 and 5160, though it has superior corrosion and abrasion resistance to those steels, the former relatively comparable to D2, and the latter (in my experience) quite similar to A2 at the same hardness. It is harder to put a really fine edge on than any of the no/low alloy steels (1095, 1084, 5160) but not as hard as many high-carbon stainless steels like 440C, S30V, etc.

Check out Joe Talmadge's Steel FAQ---it's a little out of date in that many newer alloys aren't on it, but it's still an excellent resource.

These Bowles were heat treated to be in the 57-59 HRC range.
Click to expand...

Thank you so much. And yeah l do agree. 1095 carbon steel is probably one of the easiest knives to sharpen. Just a a dozen strokes on a smooth stone and you're good to go for the next couple of weeks.
 
carbonsteelfan said:
Thank you so much. And yeah l do agree. 1095 carbon steel is probably one of the easiest knives to sharpen. Just a a dozen strokes on a smooth stone and you're good to go for the next couple of weeks.
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It's been a go-to choice for about a century for that reason. :)
 
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