Big Break

JTknives

JTknives

Joined
Jun 11, 2006
Messages
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I wire new homes for a generial contractor that is a huge hunter. he has the 2 largist mule dear ever taken with black powder. he hunts in 5-10 states every year and does bow, rifle and muzzle loading. he is also a guide for very very rich people. and does that about every other week. he has a knife thats the best he has ever used and i get to recreat it with some CPM 10V :). i told him about 10v and he had to have one and that he could sell a ton of these for me. i need fancy but strong handle materal?
 
Good deal. I would go with a highly figured and stabilized wood. Maybe lightly dyed box elder or maple. Pick out a nice set and do your very best on this. It may well get you some great clients.
 
i was thinking mokume and mammouth with some nice pins. whers a good place to get mokume
 
In my opinion....Ask him what he would like as a handle material,you could give him a choice of certain materials that you know you can get easily and quickly.

That will take any guessing out of the equation,hate to see you loose this due to him not liking your choice of material,dont ask how I know this,better off to ask and make it more personal.You can make his more personal to him and he can pick a material for the other knives,unless you know his buddies he will know their taste better than you.

Oh yea,is this a full tang or hidden tang,makes a difference sometimes on material availability or sizes...

Just my thoughts
 
If you want something a little different,get the blonde to varigated color buffalo horn and add a thin copper spacer (polished) between it and the tang,very elegant and rich looking.I still say ask him.

Bruce
 
Bruce Evans said:
If you want something a little different,get the blonde to varigated color buffalo horn and add a thin copper spacer (polished) between it and the tang,very elegant and rich looking.I still say ask him.

Bruce
Click to expand...

Where do you get the varigated guffalo horn?
 
I was going to say that you would just have to check with the suppliers and see if they have any.I usually find mine at shows.If you can find some you will like it as with the dark and light colorations streaking through it,it really makes the handles cool looking.

Bruce
 
JT,

How about Micarta, it would hold up with dressing out animals, takes to neglect and harsh environment. Comes in many colors and in multiple colors. If the knives are going to be used in the field, they will be dropped, cleaned better later, scraped, packed with all the gear. Oh ya, and maybe use by some other person who doesn’t know the difference between the care of a knife and treat your knife with care.
 
ya i was thinking micarta or g10. but want to go el natural. love the buffalo horn idea. i do want to do some file work on the tang which would look cool with the the copper agenist it.
 
I'd vote for desert ironwood. The better grade of matched scales are about as fancy as it gets, as far as wood goes. Really nice stag scales can be petty hard to find, but look really good. "Fancy" and "strong" are relative terms. For a genuine, hard use knife, I'd stick with micarta, G-10, or some sort of carbon fiber. It's not "fancy" at all in my mind, but fits the bill for the "strong" part. Stabilized wood is probably the best choice in this case. Like Bruce says, though, I'd let the customer have a hand in choosing. I really like the copper liner idea.

Todd
 
is there any good books with tons of photos of knives i could show him so he can see all the options.
 
I do wish there was a site with differant handle materials just for show and tell. I may add something like that to mine if I ever have time.

FWIW, ask him. For the field I'd go with stabilized wood for the natural or mycarta. Probably bead blasted mycarta for grip, but it realy depends on the knife shape and what you intend to do with it. I love desert ironwood, but unless the owner is willing to take real good care of it I wouldn't suggest it. If it's full tange you might find it hard to get stag or bone large enough to fit your design. I do like giraffe bone, but I think it's fallen out of favor collector wise, might be wrong about that.

One posibility I want to try is TruIvory, it's a synthetic ivory substitute used primarily for grips and looks and works just like the real thing. I've got a set of scales I haven't had a chance to work yet, but there very hard unlike the cast poly resine and won't pick of scratches as easy.

Mokume might be a little over the top for a user, but if the design works out for you you might want to make a "presentation" grade version.

Can you post a pic of the design? Oh, and forgive me, but is 10v carbon or stainless? I cant remember. My general rule for my knives, though there are many exceptions, is that carbon steel generaly gets natural materials and stainless gets synthetics. Mainly my resoning on that is the blade and handle will age together. Ie. I won't wind up with a blackened and stained blade and pristene handle, and I won't have a bright and shiny blade with a darkened and well stained handle.
 
JT, get an idea as to the blade shape he prefers even to the point of having him draw it out. I saw some silhouettes posted here take those along to get it started. You could also make up a small catalog of handle materials, some woods, horn, antler, and synthetics and give him a chance to input. Letting him get involved in the process may give him a real sense of custom. Pictures of others knives may not be a great idea. He may decide to go to the source. (I will send you pictures of mine LOL) Make the first knife a high end user and explain you can go up or down from there Jim
 
well i cornered him and started listing all the options and now he is super excyted and wants 3 befor christmas, o my. each one will have a diffrent handle materail. the extra 2 are gifts for frends
 
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