Back in the early summer when I was laid up with the virus, I had the notion to see if I could put finger grooves on a buck-like lockback. I had been browsing the web and saw some home brew modifications to 110 style knives and thought I’d try. I had a Japanese g96 lockback that was about the length of a 110, if about half the width. I marked where my fingers went and got straight to work. I began with a piece of 80 grit belt sander paper wrapped around a wooden dowel of about 3/8” in diameter. That was my “cutting” paper and with a lot of elbow grease eventually cut the four grooves into the brass and wood all at once. It took about two hours of very slow going, but, after all, I had nothing else to do and nowhere to be. Once I had the grooves cut to where I wanted them, all I had to do was finish sand. I used gradually finer grits around the dowel, and then freehand, to smooth the grooves and round the sharper edges. The G96 is a slab-sided knife -- the edges of the handle aren’t radiused. I beveled them, also with sandpaper. Finally, I finish sanded the entire handle, oiled it with a mix of turpentine and boiled linseed oil, and polished it up with some beeswax. While I spent about eight hours modding the knife, I rarely use it, since I prefer a bulkier handle. The thin handle fatigues my hand when I’m doing any prolonged cutting. It was a fun project at any rate. I’m not sure what steel it is, but it was a bear to sharpen. Around the internet, I’ve read that Jet Aer, the manufacturer of the G96, may have used ATS-34. I don’t know much about steels, so I can’t say for certain, however it was harder to sharpen than say a Schrade LB7, and held the edge cutting cardboard, synthetic rope, and cardboard longer that Schrade, not that my test was in any way empirical. Here are a couple pics of the final product
