First true American clip-point.

Scott Hanson

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This knife was made from 5160 steel per specific customer request who is an avid collector of Bowie knives along with other Bowie knife related items. There is not a sheath for the knife yet, the customer is planning on making a replica sheath, with a metal throat and tip, for it him self. I will send the knife to him with a leather belt carry style sheath.

This is known as the H. Huber Steel Bowie knife, it is also thought of as the first true American clip-point. This is also the only known knife to be made specifically for James Bowie per his request. This knife was made by Henry Huber Jr. of Philadelphia sometime between 1831 and 1832 and presented to James Bowie between 1832 and 1833. There is some very good information about this knife and some others from an article written by Miss Lucy Leigh Bowie titled, The Famous Bowie Knife, it goes through the history of this knife s well as some of the others. I'll post the article in the next post after this one.

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It's not too difficult to see where Bob Loveless may have gotten some of his inspiration from.

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Spectacular work! The grinds are amazing and everything about it flows beautifully.
 
Spectacular work! The grinds are amazing and everything about it flows beautifully.
Thanks Mack, I took this project on to do something different, this is actually the first time working with an oil quench steel, I didn’t do the heat treating but still learned a lot from this project. This knife sure looks like a the inspiration for some of Bob Lovelesses work.
 
I really enjoyed reading that article, Scott, and your work on the reproduction, of course, is just top notch.

I think it interesting to see where the origins of the modern day American clip-point sprouted from and I can see why, despite the fact that the Sandbar knife is thought to have been completely different, it's still rightly attributed to Bowie.
 
Damn those grinds are nice Scott, beautiful work! There's a lot going on there and Mack's right it really flows well.
Thanks John, I appreciate it, replicas are kind of a PITA to make but I learned quite a bit from this project.
 
I really enjoyed reading that article, Scott, and your work on the reproduction, of course, is just top notch.

I think it interesting to see where the origins of the modern day American clip-point sprouted from and I can see why, despite the fact that the Sandbar knife is thought to have been completely different, it's still rightly attributed to Bowie.
Thanks Dylan, I fell in with some Bowie knife fanatics a while back, that's how this project got under way. It has been quite a learning experience, and there is a ton of info out there.
 
Stellar work as usual Scott!:thumbsup: Pretty serious curve to the handle...how does it feel in hand?
 
Stellar work as usual Scott!:thumbsup: Pretty serious curve to the handle...how does it feel in hand?
It feels good in the hand until you try a reverse grip. But then a again this knife was designed with only one thing in mind, hand to hand combat. From what I've read James Bowie had a peculiar way of holding a knife, he held it like a sword and would lunge with the blade straight forward at the target. This would stand to reason as a straight forward lunge would be much hard to block than a slashing motion would be. Any heavy leather back in the day, which was in use during that time period, would protect the combatant from slashing and chopping attacks, probably not so much from a piercing attack.
 
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