Bradford USA: Gatsby in M390

Gary W. Graley

Gary W. Graley

“Imagination is more important than knowledge"
Knifemaker / Craftsman / Service Provider
Joined
Mar 2, 1999
Messages
27,665
Just arrived today, a holiday gift from out west, Raj, thanks sir! you are too kind !

This is a very nice size knife, made, or rather designed, as a custom steak knife and for that purpose I think it would excel very well. It has full flat grind down to a thin edge, nice handle shape, it cuts leather great ;) so a steak should be a piece of cake...no wait, it's still a steak, just slices a little harder than cake.

Bradford USA used M390 for the steel and the edge arrived quite sharp, very nice work on that. A sheath isn't included, since it's intended purpose is for kitchen/dinner duty, but there is an optional kydex sheath for this if you find that you want to carry it or be able to store it a little more safely in a drawer. While it may appear funny if you draw this out in a camp situation, as it's more of a 'city' knife, but I would think it would be a great cutter just about any where you happen to be.

Here's a quick shot of the knife pardon the shot as it was pretty late when I was doing this review, but wanted to get it right away since Raj was kind enough to have this sent out :). The knife has black micarta scales with red liners, the handle is what I would consider as smallish, with my medium/small hands, it fits fine with a handle length of about 3.8" long

The blade has about 2.7mm thick at the spine and measures about 4.6" long from tip to handle.

Gatsby_- by GaryWGraley, on Flickr

The handle is nicely contoured as well, the micarta is polished but when wet it does provide a good tacky grip, as I noticed when I washed it all down on arrival.

Gatsby_side by GaryWGraley, on Flickr

Nice work, cuts great, good metal with about a 60 rc on it, it goes well with my fork too. Short story on that, I've owned this ONE fork for almost 40 years! picked it up in a supermarket when I was shopping one night, there might have been two in the set, but one remains and everyone in my family knows that is 'Dad's' fork :) it has a hidden tang build with some bakelite type handle material and the fork is a cast piece with some decoration on the top of the fork's handle section. It has some class to it, I'm amazed it's lasted as long as it has with me.

G2

a couple links to some other reviews of Bradford USA knives;

Guardian 3

Guardian 4
 
Last edited:
This is one terrific knife. I'm partially paralyzed on my left side. I can't hold the fork all that well (getting better at it), so I needed the best steak knife possible to cut meat with the least effort. Tried a number of them very carefully, and this one outshone all, by a wide margin. Not only sharp as the dickens, it balances like a dream in the hand, much like any truly superb knife. Just a delight to use. I got the kydex sheath so I can take it to restaurants as well, where I've showed it off to wait staffs and chefs.
 
Thanks guys and that fork, stuff legends are made of ;)

Here are some shots taken this morning, for reference, the plate is about 10 1/4" diameter

Gatsby_plate_ by GaryWGraley, on Flickr

The fork has a nice mating up of the handle to the metal, the handle swells up as you can see here, just suits me so well.
(pardon the blue tacky bit at the end of the knife handle, that helps to keep things from sliding around)

fork_handle by GaryWGraley, on Flickr

and cast into the metal a tasteful engraving;

Fork_closeup by GaryWGraley, on Flickr

and yes, cuts like crazy to be sure! I have a kydex sheath heading my way soon, for those times I might want to carry it around !
G2
 
Last edited:
I use a Kydex sheath so I can bring my own to restaurants. The server always asks about it, and it makes for a superior dining experience.
 
Not one to sit still, just ask my wife ;) I wasn't real fond of the high point, just me as I know most will love it as she sits, point of fact my wife actually, but, I prefer a little lower point, one that is, well, pointier as it were, so I took some gaffers tape and laid it on the blade to see what it might look like with some metal removed. The clip starts just about mid point of the blade, giving it a nice long clip point to it, bringing the tip about in line with those corby bolts too. I had emailed Bradford, worried it would upset him to see such a travesty but he replied that he liked it and also likes that folks will take the time to do things on their own to make the knife their own, I was relieved to get that email reply :) here's a shot of the knife in it's new ground way, let me tell you that m390 is some tough stuff to grind, especially once hardened! I'm not really setup for metal working, just have a make shift disk sander 9", it wore down the new pad of 100 grit paper kinda fast. I took my time doing this, used a magic marker to make a reference line to work with and dipped the blade frequently to keep cool.

GatsbyModified by GaryWGraley, on Flickr

Pre mod look of the blade;

Gatsby_pre_mod by GaryWGraley, on Flickr

and one after the mod

Gatsby_mod_blade by GaryWGraley, on Flickr

I have the kydex sheath which retains this rascal exceedingly well, so it could even be carried neck wise without any worry of it coming free and being light it would work well in that roll.

SO, I now have a quite sharp and very pointy fancy steak knife, with the curve there you can still use this for that very task if you so desire and it ended up not making the blade much shorter at all.

As the old commercial use to say " don't hate me because I'm beautiful..." :)

G2

edited to add: An no, I'm not available to make this mod for folks :) sorry, just not setup for metal work to do this, and if you end up giving it a go, just take it slow, tape up the edge and don't wear gloves, that way you can feel if the blade ever gets too warm, dip in water FREQUENTLY and again, go slow...
 
Last edited:
I loved the look of the original but this mod looks even better! Nice work! Would love to pick one of these up but alas the funds just aren't there.
 
Great job.
With ceramic stones (Spyderco and Chosera) I have not had problems with the M390.

Greetings.
 
I like it Gary. Nice job. Looks good. It gives the knife (not quite sure what word I'm looking for here) a more serious or edgy look in a very subtle way. Now you have me thinking....(ouch), I wonder what a spine gradually curving down from further back, to the same point, would look like. Mike
 
Thanks guys and not sure what that would look like, wouldn't want to get into the Bradford logo for sure though. And that point has been quite useful a lot so far, opening packages it's a breeze to do with the point being lower now.

It does give it a more aggressive look, streamline kind of thing, my friend that gifted this to me has one as well...guess what I'll be doing for him in the new year ;) but one more will be fine, I do have another pad of sanding paper on hand for his knife :)

And Happy New Years Eve to everyone !
G2
 
flash900 said:
Brad, would you consider Gary's mod for your model?
Click to expand...


I would certainly consider doing the mod that Gary did, I really like it. It does make the knife even more steak friendly. If it will only be used for steak, I think this is great mod. Many of the Gatsby/Orwell users including myself use the original profile to slice all sorts of light-duty or kitchen type foods such as vegetables, cheese and also for the fine occasional slab of red meat ;)

If I were to make another batch of this similar profile, I would certainly entertain dropping the tip. As is stands now, I only have about 20 of the Gatsby Meat Scalpel's left. If someone was interested in Gary's mod we could certainly chat via email about the particulars.
Thanks!
-Brad
brad@bradfordknives.com
 
Mike157 said:
I like it Gary. Nice job. Looks good. It gives the knife (not quite sure what word I'm looking for here) a more serious or edgy look in a very subtle way. Now you have me thinking....(ouch), I wonder what a spine gradually curving down from further back, to the same point, would look like. Mike
Click to expand...

I like this idea too :)
 
Bradford said:
I like this idea too :)
Click to expand...

I was thinking about trying it with one of mine, but I have to figure out if I know what I'm doing or not! Mike

I have a water cooled wheel which would take the overheat worry out of the picture, but I think it may be too fine for this job.
 
Bradford said:
...If it will only be used for steak, I think this is great mod
Click to expand...

That's a good point Brad, not to confuse the root purpose of this knife, as a gourmet steak knife, or food prep and the like. While I may press it into other duty, it's good to remind folks that it isn't intended for any other purpose. The blade is fairly thin, so you would not want to be doing any prying for sure. But just for myself, I think it will work well as a neck knife for light everyday chores. As long as I keep it to those menial cutting tasks I think it'll be very nice daily carry.

And Mike, if that stone is really fine, you will most likely be sitting there a LONG time to get it ground down ;)
G2
 
and just a little left over Christmas cheer, rough image of the blade with reflection of our Christmas tree, taken with my ipod touch.

Gatsby_Christmas_Lights.jpg~original


G2
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top