Been away from here for a while but...

Rick Baum

Rick Baum

Joined
Mar 14, 2000
Messages
509
Hello everyone. I've been away from here for a while now. So long that all of the usual suspects seem to have disappeared for the most part.

Anyway, I may have been away from the forum but I have been busy in the shop. I'd really appreciate some feedback on my latest creation. It's for a buddy of mine that is deploying to Afghanistan in a few days. Here's the spec's...

It's 13 1/4" over-all with a forged and differentially heat treated 5160 blade that is 8 1/2 long by 1 1/2 wide. The blade is coated with baked on KG Gun-Kote in Coyote Brown (or KG's closest approved color anyway).

The handle is home-made "Micarta" that I made from a set of my buddies BDU's. The BDU's he sent me were worn on his first tour in Afghanistan.

The guard is patina'd copper to reduce glare.

It's a relatively light knife for one of it's size... It weighs in at just 12 oz.

The sheath is a Combat Master from Spec-Ops in Coyote Brown.

Now for performance... I've been working on my JS qualifications lately so this knife is produced to the performance standards required by the ABS for a JS performance test knife. I obviously didn't bend this one but it passed the 1" rope cut and 2X4 chop portions of the test. It has had several predecessors that I have tested for bend and I followed the same HT with this one. It edge flexed very nicely as well.

Hopefully he'll just be opening MRE's with it and won't have to call on it for anything sinister, but if he does, it's ready and able.

Enough of that... let me know what ya'll think.

Thanks for looking.

Rick
 

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Thanks guys! I appreciate your kind words.

Brian, Yes, it is fantastic handle material for grippiness. Even grippier when wet. I've hammered the stuff with my 3 lb. hammer on my anvil without any delamination or marks of any kind. I'm really amazed at the toughness of it. I still need to do more testing to see if it's affected by UV. That's my only concern at this point. It wouldn't be too difficult to give the surface a quick 180 grit sanding to remove any degraded resins if need be.

Thanks again guys!
Rick
 
Nice one and a nice handle as well.
Your buddy is a lucky man to have you as a friend
 
Thanks Hengelo 77 and Bill. I appreciate your comments!

The good news is that my buddy has received it and is very excited about it. He is going to be serving in Helmand Province trying to convince farmers to grow something other than poppies. Sounds like his work is cut out for him... Pun intended :)
 
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