Guardians of The Lambsfoot!

[sbh06]

Well, Guardians, seeing as these will be showing up for several of you today (and, in fact, made it to a few of you yesterday), I suppose it’s time for me to post about this here in the thread. Of course, those of you with whom I’ve exchanged PMs this past week will already know about this, but I want to post about it here so that you all can feel free to share your knives as they arrive.

Since the beginning of the year — and with Jack’s blessing, of course — I’ve been working with Eric Albers to make a 2024 Guardians of the Lambsfoot SFO for us. This is the first Guardians knife we’ve had in 5 years; the last one prior to this was done in 2019.

The knife is the same swayback Lambsfoot patterns that Eric has been making for a couple years now: 3 5/8” closed, a satin-finished CPM154 blade, and stainless liners and bolsters. The handle material is a vintage Micarta from the 1950s/60s, which Eric sourced from Poland. It came in a large cylinder measuring 4” in diameter and about 6.5” long. According to Eric’s Polish source, these Micarta cylinders were used in elevators, though we couldn’t really figure out exactly how they were used. Perhaps just as an electrical insulator, maybe something more interesting, but who knows. If we have any Guardians here who are experts in mid-century Polish elevators, feel free to chime in!

Eric cross-cut the cylinder into disks that were the proper thickness he needed for scales. Of course, cutting into a big hunk of Micarta like that, we didn’t really know what the finished product would look like, but I have to say I’m quite happy with the end result. It has a somewhat more rustic look than, say, vintage Westinghouse Micarta, but I think that gives the knives an extra bit of character. The color is a warm butterscotch tan, with a bit of grey here and there, and (on some of the knives) sporadic dark brown spots. The texture/grain of the Micarta varies from knife to knife.

For previous Guardians SFOs, Jack would always take a big group shot of all the knives laid out on his table, so I figured I should probably do the same.

Now, as we all know, discussion of purchasing knives is against the rules of both the subforum and this thread, but I will briefly address how the distribution of these knives was handled to hopefully answer any questions those of you seeing this for the first time might have and hopefully help avoid any discussion about buying. I believe these knives belong in the hands of the folks who have helped this thread what it is today, and the fairest way I could think of to do that was to offer them to Guardians based on participation in the thread. I pulled quite a bit of data from over the past year, and came up with a list of the people who had contributed the most in that time period, with some allowances made for longtime Guardians members (even if the frequency of their recent posts didn’t put them up at the top of the list). I reached out to these members starting last weekend, only reaching out to as many people as I had knives available. If someone opted out, I moved to the next person down the list.

Long story short, these knives are all essentially spoken for at this point. There are a few Guardians I’m still waiting to hear from (unfortunately it seems the recent forum upgrades have caused some issues with notifications for PMs), so there is a slight possibility that I might reach out to one or two more people on the list that I haven’t contacted yet, but I will be sticking to the list, so please don’t message me asking if you can buy a knife. I wish I had enough knives to offer to anyone and everyone who wants one, but of course we all know it rarely works out that way, and I’m grateful Eric was able to make as many as he did for us.

One thing that I haven’t mentioned yet is the special liner stamp that I asked Eric to do for these knives. Sheffield cutler (and Jack’s friend) Stan Shaw, along with other cutlers working for Ibberson’s, including Stan’s mentor Ted Osborne, would sometimes stamp their initials and the year inside the liners of knives they made. This was, at least in part, a practice done to keep other cutlers from nicking parts off each others workbenches, but it has also, more recently, served as a means for collectors to identify knives that were made by Stan. So, as a way to identify our Guardians knives, and as a nod to Stan Shaw, I asked Eric if he could do a similar stamp inside the liner of these. Here’s a liner stamp on a Stan Shaw knife (I believe this photo is @waynorth Charlie’s), which I sent to Eric as an example of what I had in mind.

And here is the Guardians stamp that Eric did on the liner of these knives, GL for Guardians of the Lambsfoot, and 24 for 2024.

Eric was kind enough to share some pics with me while he was making the knives, which I’ll share soon in a separate post, but for now I’m just excited for you all to get these in hand, and I can’t wait to see your pics of them. I hope y'all like them! Thanks to Jack Black for allowing me to take this project on, and thanks of course to Eric ea42 for making these knives for us!

I know what Lambsfoot I’ll have in my pocket today.

Congratulations on bringing this to fruition Barrett, those knives look fantastic. ea42 does great work and these are another fine example.

 

[Angry Waiter]

Well, Guardians, seeing as these will be showing up for several of you today (and, in fact, made it to a few of you yesterday), I suppose it’s time for me to post about this here in the thread. Of course, those of you with whom I’ve exchanged PMs this past week will already know about this, but I want to post about it here so that you all can feel free to share your knives as they arrive.

Since the beginning of the year — and with Jack’s blessing, of course — I’ve been working with Eric Albers to make a 2024 Guardians of the Lambsfoot SFO for us. This is the first Guardians knife we’ve had in 5 years; the last one prior to this was done in 2019.

The knife is the same swayback Lambsfoot patterns that Eric has been making for a couple years now: 3 5/8” closed, a satin-finished CPM154 blade, and stainless liners and bolsters. The handle material is a vintage Micarta from the 1950s/60s, which Eric sourced from Poland. It came in a large cylinder measuring 4” in diameter and about 6.5” long. According to Eric’s Polish source, these Micarta cylinders were used in elevators, though we couldn’t really figure out exactly how they were used. Perhaps just as an electrical insulator, maybe something more interesting, but who knows. If we have any Guardians here who are experts in mid-century Polish elevators, feel free to chime in!

Eric cross-cut the cylinder into disks that were the proper thickness he needed for scales. Of course, cutting into a big hunk of Micarta like that, we didn’t really know what the finished product would look like, but I have to say I’m quite happy with the end result. It has a somewhat more rustic look than, say, vintage Westinghouse Micarta, but I think that gives the knives an extra bit of character. The color is a warm butterscotch tan, with a bit of grey here and there, and (on some of the knives) sporadic dark brown spots. The texture/grain of the Micarta varies from knife to knife.

For previous Guardians SFOs, Jack would always take a big group shot of all the knives laid out on his table, so I figured I should probably do the same.

Now, as we all know, discussion of purchasing knives is against the rules of both the subforum and this thread, but I will briefly address how the distribution of these knives was handled to hopefully answer any questions those of you seeing this for the first time might have and hopefully help avoid any discussion about buying. I believe these knives belong in the hands of the folks who have helped this thread what it is today, and the fairest way I could think of to do that was to offer them to Guardians based on participation in the thread. I pulled quite a bit of data from over the past year, and came up with a list of the people who had contributed the most in that time period, with some allowances made for longtime Guardians members (even if the frequency of their recent posts didn’t put them up at the top of the list). I reached out to these members starting last weekend, only reaching out to as many people as I had knives available. If someone opted out, I moved to the next person down the list.

Long story short, these knives are all essentially spoken for at this point. There are a few Guardians I’m still waiting to hear from (unfortunately it seems the recent forum upgrades have caused some issues with notifications for PMs), so there is a slight possibility that I might reach out to one or two more people on the list that I haven’t contacted yet, but I will be sticking to the list, so please don’t message me asking if you can buy a knife. I wish I had enough knives to offer to anyone and everyone who wants one, but of course we all know it rarely works out that way, and I’m grateful Eric was able to make as many as he did for us.

One thing that I haven’t mentioned yet is the special liner stamp that I asked Eric to do for these knives. Sheffield cutler (and Jack’s friend) Stan Shaw, along with other cutlers working for Ibberson’s, including Stan’s mentor Ted Osborne, would sometimes stamp their initials and the year inside the liners of knives they made. This was, at least in part, a practice done to keep other cutlers from nicking parts off each others workbenches, but it has also, more recently, served as a means for collectors to identify knives that were made by Stan. So, as a way to identify our Guardians knives, and as a nod to Stan Shaw, I asked Eric if he could do a similar stamp inside the liner of these. Here’s a liner stamp on a Stan Shaw knife (I believe this photo is @waynorth Charlie’s), which I sent to Eric as an example of what I had in mind.

And here is the Guardians stamp that Eric did on the liner of these knives, GL for Guardians of the Lambsfoot, and 24 for 2024.

Eric was kind enough to share some pics with me while he was making the knives, which I’ll share soon in a separate post, but for now I’m just excited for you all to get these in hand, and I can’t wait to see your pics of them. I hope y'all like them! Thanks to Jack Black for allowing me to take this project on, and thanks of course to Eric ea42 for making these knives for us!

I know what Lambsfoot I’ll have in my pocket today.

Congratulations Barrett! They all look fantastic. Such a cool project. I bet it was a blast to collaborate with Jack and Eric.

 

[Rufus1949]

Wow, it's great to see that the generosity here is still going!

Jack Black using the search tool, I found I haven't posted in this thread for over 2 years. My apologies for that, and something I sorely need to rectify. It just moves so darn quickly, I feel bad when I can't keep up!

Anyhow, I would like to enter your GAW!

These are my first two Lambs, which were purchased at the same time, specifically because of this thread, sometime back in 2018 I believe.

Still one of my favorites, Jack Black you once told me that you believed this was some left over stag from the AC SFO.



The horn on this one is the worst I have owned, and I have a lot of horn! Been meaning to have it re-done with these ironwood blanks for a long time.... maybe this will motivate me to contact one our outstanding craftsmen here.



My carnivorous lamb is still protecting my HHB in my avatar!

btb01 that sure is a stunning Guardian's knife and congratulations to all who got one!

Always good to meet older members returning to the flock.

 

[Jack Black]

A fine Albers Jack.
I admire your energy and stamina, hangin' with the boys.

My daughter is doing well in the city of London, thanks for asking.It seems to be a hub for her. She is usually traveling the world for her job. Last stop, Tanzania & Zimbabwe.

Thank you Bob Unfortunately, my younger friends won't let me grow old gracefully! They keep telling me age is just a number! What the heck do they know, whippersnappers?!

I'm pleased to hear about your daughter my friend, she sure gets around!

Hope your not too hungover , have a great day !

Thank you Steve, I could have done with a couple more hour's sleep, but I'm OK otherwise

Thanks, Jack. Nah, that’s a standard size Wright’s Lambsfoot that you sent me years back, a small run you had made in Indonesian Rosewood, I think?

The bowl is a souvenir from high school or college. A buddy of mine and I were driving through Missouri, delivering (or picking up) an RV for my dad (I did a lot of that back then), and they used to have these billboards along the highway every few miles, “WALNUT BOWL FACTORY STORE, 126 MILES.” After driving past dozens of them (122 MILES… 116MILES… 109 MILES… etc.) and laughing about it, we decided what the hell, we’d stop at the Walnut Bowl Factory Store. Of course, we were the youngest people in there by several decades, and I don’t know what we were expecting, but it was just a huge store full of wooden bowls. We each bought the smallest bowl we they had and went on our way.

Sounds like you had fun, Jack. You might have to roll me home after 9 pints!

Oh right! Yes, I had a short run done in Indonesian Rosewood, and one in African That's a nice one, I remember the bowl story now!

Well, Guardians, seeing as these will be showing up for several of you today (and, in fact, made it to a few of you yesterday), I suppose it’s time for me to post about this here in the thread. Of course, those of you with whom I’ve exchanged PMs this past week will already know about this, but I want to post about it here so that you all can feel free to share your knives as they arrive.

Since the beginning of the year — and with Jack’s blessing, of course — I’ve been working with Eric Albers to make a 2024 Guardians of the Lambsfoot SFO for us. This is the first Guardians knife we’ve had in 5 years; the last one prior to this was done in 2019.

The knife is the same swayback Lambsfoot patterns that Eric has been making for a couple years now: 3 5/8” closed, a satin-finished CPM154 blade, and stainless liners and bolsters. The handle material is a vintage Micarta from the 1950s/60s, which Eric sourced from Poland. It came in a large cylinder measuring 4” in diameter and about 6.5” long. According to Eric’s Polish source, these Micarta cylinders were used in elevators, though we couldn’t really figure out exactly how they were used. Perhaps just as an electrical insulator, maybe something more interesting, but who knows. If we have any Guardians here who are experts in mid-century Polish elevators, feel free to chime in!

Eric cross-cut the cylinder into disks that were the proper thickness he needed for scales. Of course, cutting into a big hunk of Micarta like that, we didn’t really know what the finished product would look like, but I have to say I’m quite happy with the end result. It has a somewhat more rustic look than, say, vintage Westinghouse Micarta, but I think that gives the knives an extra bit of character. The color is a warm butterscotch tan, with a bit of grey here and there, and (on some of the knives) sporadic dark brown spots. The texture/grain of the Micarta varies from knife to knife.

For previous Guardians SFOs, Jack would always take a big group shot of all the knives laid out on his table, so I figured I should probably do the same.

Now, as we all know, discussion of purchasing knives is against the rules of both the subforum and this thread, but I will briefly address how the distribution of these knives was handled to hopefully answer any questions those of you seeing this for the first time might have and hopefully help avoid any discussion about buying. I believe these knives belong in the hands of the folks who have helped this thread what it is today, and the fairest way I could think of to do that was to offer them to Guardians based on participation in the thread. I pulled quite a bit of data from over the past year, and came up with a list of the people who had contributed the most in that time period, with some allowances made for longtime Guardians members (even if the frequency of their recent posts didn’t put them up at the top of the list). I reached out to these members starting last weekend, only reaching out to as many people as I had knives available. If someone opted out, I moved to the next person down the list.

Long story short, these knives are all essentially spoken for at this point. There are a few Guardians I’m still waiting to hear from (unfortunately it seems the recent forum upgrades have caused some issues with notifications for PMs), so there is a slight possibility that I might reach out to one or two more people on the list that I haven’t contacted yet, but I will be sticking to the list, so please don’t message me asking if you can buy a knife. I wish I had enough knives to offer to anyone and everyone who wants one, but of course we all know it rarely works out that way, and I’m grateful Eric was able to make as many as he did for us.

One thing that I haven’t mentioned yet is the special liner stamp that I asked Eric to do for these knives. Sheffield cutler (and Jack’s friend) Stan Shaw, along with other cutlers working for Ibberson’s, including Stan’s mentor Ted Osborne, would sometimes stamp their initials and the year inside the liners of knives they made. This was, at least in part, a practice done to keep other cutlers from nicking parts off each others workbenches, but it has also, more recently, served as a means for collectors to identify knives that were made by Stan. So, as a way to identify our Guardians knives, and as a nod to Stan Shaw, I asked Eric if he could do a similar stamp inside the liner of these. Here’s a liner stamp on a Stan Shaw knife (I believe this photo is @waynorth Charlie’s), which I sent to Eric as an example of what I had in mind.

And here is the Guardians stamp that Eric did on the liner of these knives, GL for Guardians of the Lambsfoot, and 24 for 2024.

Eric was kind enough to share some pics with me while he was making the knives, which I’ll share soon in a separate post, but for now I’m just excited for you all to get these in hand, and I can’t wait to see your pics of them. I hope y'all like them! Thanks to Jack Black for allowing me to take this project on, and thanks of course to Eric ea42 for making these knives for us!

I know what Lambsfoot I’ll have in my pocket today.

You deserve a huge round of applause Barrett! Well done my friend, you have handled this project impeccably The knives look superb, I'm so pleased Eric agreed to do this I am grateful to you both, (and other folks too ), well done The liner stamp is a very classy addition

 

[Jack Black]

View attachment 2638300
Maybe a lamb? Count me in!

Sorry Justin, that's a beautiful knife, but Charlie's Ancient Barlow is inspired by a pattern even older than the Lambsfoot, known as a Short Beak. This giveaway is intended for existing Guardians, but I am running a second giveaway too, which you are very welcome to enter. Please see the link in my sig line

Big thanks to Barrett for undertaking this project and Eric for agreeing to take it on

Also to Jack for giving his blessing

Great timing with us reaching the 100,000 post milestone in this thread !

Barrett included a nice hand typed note and stickers with the knife. Very nice touch

View attachment 2638328


View attachment 2638327

View attachment 2638325



With Gidget

View attachment 2638326

Fantastic Steve The timing couldn't be better I love the stickers, this is the first time I've actually seen them!

Let me add one more level of celebration.
I am a newbie compared to most members here. Yet, it is amazing how comfortable I have been made to feel.
Three years on the forum will be coming up next week, so I will celebrate with a give away.
I will post the simple rules tomorrow. NO CONGRATS, AT A BOY, ETC. I promised Jack not to tie up thread.
This is mine, but I have the same brand new lamb in tube, only taken out to inspect, to be given away.
Hint...start counting.
View attachment 2638343

Congratulations Generous Bob, itis great to have you here among us That's a beautiful Lambsfoot I think

Quick pic as I'm running errands at the moment. Thank you to Barrett, Eric, Jack and everyone else involved in this epic Guardian Lambsfoot. It's a treasure I will cherish!

View attachment 2638345

Fantastic composition David

Alas, Jack has ruled on that knife!! It is a "Long Beak" (from an old guide book) pattern blade, not a Lambsfoot!
But I appreciate your enthusiasm for, and appreciation of, that Ancient!!

Thank you Charlie, the Ancients are one of your finest achievements I think, and you sure have produced some smashers my friend

Congratulations, Barrett on a great project!! I know mine is in the mail somewhere, and I look forward to it!! You have supervised and completed a worthy project!!
And Thanks Jack, for guarding the recognition of this great pattern, and making it a much-used and enjoyed Icon of cutlery!!

Thank you Charlie

This is pretty amazing and checks a lot of boxes for me:
Albers? Yes!
Lambsfoot? Yes!
Micarta? Yes!

I love the GL-24 mark, too!

Thanks for making this happen, Barrett - what a great project.

USPS says mine will be here Monday; until then I'll be carrying the HHB.

I hope everyone is having a great day I headed down to Charlie's, and then into town to meet up with some friends for lunch. Been a nice day Unfortunately, I forgot to put a memory card in my camera! Enjoy your evening

 

[pat9198]

Well, Guardians, seeing as these will be showing up for several of you today (and, in fact, made it to a few of you yesterday), I suppose it’s time for me to post about this here in the thread. Of course, those of you with whom I’ve exchanged PMs this past week will already know about this, but I want to post about it here so that you all can feel free to share your knives as they arrive.

Since the beginning of the year — and with Jack’s blessing, of course — I’ve been working with Eric Albers to make a 2024 Guardians of the Lambsfoot SFO for us. This is the first Guardians knife we’ve had in 5 years; the last one prior to this was done in 2019.

The knife is the same swayback Lambsfoot patterns that Eric has been making for a couple years now: 3 5/8” closed, a satin-finished CPM154 blade, and stainless liners and bolsters. The handle material is a vintage Micarta from the 1950s/60s, which Eric sourced from Poland. It came in a large cylinder measuring 4” in diameter and about 6.5” long. According to Eric’s Polish source, these Micarta cylinders were used in elevators, though we couldn’t really figure out exactly how they were used. Perhaps just as an electrical insulator, maybe something more interesting, but who knows. If we have any Guardians here who are experts in mid-century Polish elevators, feel free to chime in!

Eric cross-cut the cylinder into disks that were the proper thickness he needed for scales. Of course, cutting into a big hunk of Micarta like that, we didn’t really know what the finished product would look like, but I have to say I’m quite happy with the end result. It has a somewhat more rustic look than, say, vintage Westinghouse Micarta, but I think that gives the knives an extra bit of character. The color is a warm butterscotch tan, with a bit of grey here and there, and (on some of the knives) sporadic dark brown spots. The texture/grain of the Micarta varies from knife to knife.

For previous Guardians SFOs, Jack would always take a big group shot of all the knives laid out on his table, so I figured I should probably do the same.

Now, as we all know, discussion of purchasing knives is against the rules of both the subforum and this thread, but I will briefly address how the distribution of these knives was handled to hopefully answer any questions those of you seeing this for the first time might have and hopefully help avoid any discussion about buying. I believe these knives belong in the hands of the folks who have helped this thread what it is today, and the fairest way I could think of to do that was to offer them to Guardians based on participation in the thread. I pulled quite a bit of data from over the past year, and came up with a list of the people who had contributed the most in that time period, with some allowances made for longtime Guardians members (even if the frequency of their recent posts didn’t put them up at the top of the list). I reached out to these members starting last weekend, only reaching out to as many people as I had knives available. If someone opted out, I moved to the next person down the list.

Long story short, these knives are all essentially spoken for at this point. There are a few Guardians I’m still waiting to hear from (unfortunately it seems the recent forum upgrades have caused some issues with notifications for PMs), so there is a slight possibility that I might reach out to one or two more people on the list that I haven’t contacted yet, but I will be sticking to the list, so please don’t message me asking if you can buy a knife. I wish I had enough knives to offer to anyone and everyone who wants one, but of course we all know it rarely works out that way, and I’m grateful Eric was able to make as many as he did for us.

One thing that I haven’t mentioned yet is the special liner stamp that I asked Eric to do for these knives. Sheffield cutler (and Jack’s friend) Stan Shaw, along with other cutlers working for Ibberson’s, including Stan’s mentor Ted Osborne, would sometimes stamp their initials and the year inside the liners of knives they made. This was, at least in part, a practice done to keep other cutlers from nicking parts off each others workbenches, but it has also, more recently, served as a means for collectors to identify knives that were made by Stan. So, as a way to identify our Guardians knives, and as a nod to Stan Shaw, I asked Eric if he could do a similar stamp inside the liner of these. Here’s a liner stamp on a Stan Shaw knife (I believe this photo is @waynorth Charlie’s), which I sent to Eric as an example of what I had in mind.

And here is the Guardians stamp that Eric did on the liner of these knives, GL for Guardians of the Lambsfoot, and 24 for 2024.

Eric was kind enough to share some pics with me while he was making the knives, which I’ll share soon in a separate post, but for now I’m just excited for you all to get these in hand, and I can’t wait to see your pics of them. I hope y'all like them! Thanks to Jack Black for allowing me to take this project on, and thanks of course to Eric ea42 for making these knives for us!

I know what Lambsfoot I’ll have in my pocket today.

This is so cool! Congrats to all the Guardians getting these and for making this thread what it is. I’m looking forward to seeing all the awesome pics of these!

 

[Jack Black]

Wow, it's great to see that the generosity here is still going!

Jack Black using the search tool, I found I haven't posted in this thread for over 2 years. My apologies for that, and something I sorely need to rectify. It just moves so darn quickly, I feel bad when I can't keep up!

Anyhow, I would like to enter your GAW!

These are my first two Lambs, which were purchased at the same time, specifically because of this thread, sometime back in 2018 I believe.

Still one of my favorites, Jack Black you once told me that you believed this was some left over stag from the AC SFO.



The horn on this one is the worst I have owned, and I have a lot of horn! Been meaning to have it re-done with these ironwood blanks for a long time.... maybe this will motivate me to contact one our outstanding craftsmen here.



My carnivorous lamb is still protecting my HHB in my avatar!

btb01 that sure is a stunning Guardian's knife and congratulations to all who got one!

Hey Steve, it's great to see you here! Two years? What on earth have you been up to?! Those are 2 outstanding photos Sorry to hear about the horn, what is the issue with it, does it have a crack? Beautiful Ironwood though

Congratulations Barrett! They all look fantastic. Such a cool project. I bet it was a blast to collaborate with Jack and Eric.

I did almost nothing Pete! But Barrett kept me in the loop

 

[SteveC]

Good afternoon everyone !


G.Butler today

 

[Jack Black]

Good afternoon everyone !


G.Butler today

View attachment 2638475



View attachment 2638476

Another vintage beauty, perfectly presented, Steve

 

[SteveC]

Another vintage beauty, perfectly presented, Steve

Thanks pal !

 

[draggat]

Hey Steve, it's great to see you here! Two years? What on earth have you been up to?! Those are 2 outstanding photos Sorry to hear about the horn, what is the issue with it, does it have a crack? Beautiful Ironwood though



I did almost nothing Pete! But Barrett kept me in the loop

Ah, yes, that is the craftsman I had in mind .... he rescued another knife of mine once!
There are two cracks in that handle, not fatal, but it is also mighty un-attractive to my hands and eyes.

I've been here and there, pop in the forums occasionally.... life has just taken over.... wife, kids, sports, pets, work. I do peek in here occasionally though. I will try to be more present, but this thread goes at a lightning pace and I hate not being able to be responsive.

Enjoy your lunch!

 

[echoscout]

Good afternoon everyone !


G.Butler today

View attachment 2638475



View attachment 2638476

Vintage goodness

 

[Jack Black]

Ah, yes, that is the craftsman I had in mind .... he rescued another knife of mine once!
There are two cracks in that handle, not fatal, but it is also mighty un-attractive to my hands and eyes.

I've been here and there, pop in the forums occasionally.... life has just taken over.... wife, kids, sports, pets, work. I do peek in here occasionally though. I will try to be more present, but this thread goes at a lightning pace and I hate not being able to be responsive.

Enjoy your lunch!

I'm sure Glenn will do you proud Thanks buddy, hope to see a bit more of you

 

[echoscout]

That looks delicious Ken

That's a cool pic Tyson Feel free to edit your post if you change your mind about entering

Great pics Steve

I have always admired that one my friend, glad you have it

Great stuff David!

Hope you manage to get hold of them mate

LOL! I know what you mean Duncan!

Cheers mate

It IS The Silent Lambsfoot!

Congratulations on that beauty, and welcome to the Guardians

LOL! The fellers in the barber's shop were very admiring of it Pete One of them said his dad had the same T-shirt!


Wow, absolutely amazing! Thanks for sharing buddy

That's very interesting Rick

Cool pics

Oh yeah! Up to 687 now!

Thanks for all you've done here my friend Some great pics there Is that a Big 'Un in the bottom of the wooden bowl? Nice wood

Good morning Guardians, thread has been busy! We're well on our way to the next milestone! After a few days with his elderly father, (and uncle and kids), Matt was in a thirsty mood, and we ended up having 9 pints, and then walking home in the early hours! He sure told me some funny stories He is off to Sheffield today, and I am heading into town to meet Wolfie, and a few other people, so I better get moving. Have a great day Guardians

Fantastic Albers

Thanks, Jack. Nah, that’s a standard size Wright’s Lambsfoot that you sent me years back, a small run you had made in Indonesian Rosewood, I think?

The bowl is a souvenir from high school or college. A buddy of mine and I were driving through Missouri, delivering (or picking up) an RV for my dad (I did a lot of that back then), and they used to have these billboards along the highway every few miles, “WALNUT BOWL FACTORY STORE, 126 MILES.” After driving past dozens of them (122 MILES… 116MILES… 109 MILES… etc.) and laughing about it, we decided what the hell, we’d stop at the Walnut Bowl Factory Store. Of course, we were the youngest people in there by several decades, and I don’t know what we were expecting, but it was just a huge store full of wooden bowls. We each bought the smallest bowl we they had and went on our way.

Sounds like you had fun, Jack. You might have to roll me home after 9 pints!

Good pic. That bowl is made of some nice Walnut. Im guessing you were on I-44. Nice

Big thanks to Barrett for undertaking this project and Eric for agreeing to take it on

Also to Jack for giving his blessing

Great timing with us reaching the 100,000 post milestone in this thread !

Barrett included a nice hand typed note and stickers with the knife. Very nice touch

View attachment 2638328


View attachment 2638327

View attachment 2638325



With Gidget

View attachment 2638326

Sure is looking good

Let me add one more level of celebration.
I am a newbie compared to most members here. Yet, it is amazing how comfortable I have been made to feel.
Three years on the forum will be coming up next week, so I will celebrate with a give away.
I will post the simple rules tomorrow. NO CONGRATS, AT A BOY, ETC. I promised Jack not to tie up thread.
This is mine, but I have the same brand new lamb in tube, only taken out to inspect, to be given away.
Hint...start counting.
View attachment 2638343

OMJ is a sweet

This is pretty amazing and checks a lot of boxes for me:
Albers? Yes!
Lambsfoot? Yes!
Micarta? Yes!

I love the GL-24 mark, too!

Thanks for making this happen, Barrett - what a great project.

USPS says mine will be here Monday; until then I'll be carrying the HHB.

Anticipation for Monday. Nice HHB

Wow, it's great to see that the generosity here is still going!

Jack Black using the search tool, I found I haven't posted in this thread for over 2 years. My apologies for that, and something I sorely need to rectify. It just moves so darn quickly, I feel bad when I can't keep up!

Anyhow, I would like to enter your GAW!

These are my first two Lambs, which were purchased at the same time, specifically because of this thread, sometime back in 2018 I believe.

Still one of my favorites, Jack Black you once told me that you believed this was some left over stag from the AC SFO.



The horn on this one is the worst I have owned, and I have a lot of horn! Been meaning to have it re-done with these ironwood blanks for a long time.... maybe this will motivate me to contact one our outstanding craftsmen here.



My carnivorous lamb is still protecting my HHB in my avatar!

btb01 that sure is a stunning Guardian's knife and congratulations to all who got one!

Looking good

Fantastic composition David

Thanks buddy

I hope everyone is having a great day I headed down to Charlie's, and then into town to meet up with some friends for lunch. Been a nice day Unfortunately, I forgot to put a memory card in my camera! Enjoy your evening

Havefun in town

 

[SteveC]

Let me add one more level of celebration.
I am a newbie compared to most members here. Yet, it is amazing how comfortable I have been made to feel.
Three years on the forum will be coming up next week, so I will celebrate with a give away.
I will post the simple rules tomorrow. NO CONGRATS, AT A BOY, ETC. I promised Jack not to tie up thread.
This is mine, but I have the same brand new lamb in tube, only taken out to inspect, to be given away.
Hint...start counting.
View attachment 2638343

Very generous of you Bob ! OMJ is a nice

Quick pic as I'm running errands at the moment. Thank you to Barrett, Eric, Jack and everyone else involved in this epic Guardian Lambsfoot. It's a treasure I will cherish!

View attachment 2638345

Congrats buddy !

This is pretty amazing and checks a lot of boxes for me:
Albers? Yes!
Lambsfoot? Yes!
Micarta? Yes!

I love the GL-24 mark, too!

Thanks for making this happen, Barrett - what a great project.

USPS says mine will be here Monday; until then I'll be carrying the HHB.

Nice one !

Wow, it's great to see that the generosity here is still going!

Jack Black using the search tool, I found I haven't posted in this thread for over 2 years. My apologies for that, and something I sorely need to rectify. It just moves so darn quickly, I feel bad when I can't keep up!

Anyhow, I would like to enter your GAW!

These are my first two Lambs, which were purchased at the same time, specifically because of this thread, sometime back in 2018 I believe.

Still one of my favorites, Jack Black you once told me that you believed this was some left over stag from the AC SFO.



The horn on this one is the worst I have owned, and I have a lot of horn! Been meaning to have it re-done with these ironwood blanks for a long time.... maybe this will motivate me to contact one our outstanding craftsmen here.



My carnivorous lamb is still protecting my HHB in my avatar!

btb01 that sure is a stunning Guardian's knife and congratulations to all who got one!

Nice

Vintage goodness

Thanks buddy !

 

[Hatchet_Jack]

Well, Guardians, seeing as these will be showing up for several of you today (and, in fact, made it to a few of you yesterday), I suppose it’s time for me to post about this here in the thread. Of course, those of you with whom I’ve exchanged PMs this past week will already know about this, but I want to post about it here so that you all can feel free to share your knives as they arrive.

Since the beginning of the year — and with Jack’s blessing, of course — I’ve been working with Eric Albers to make a 2024 Guardians of the Lambsfoot SFO for us. This is the first Guardians knife we’ve had in 5 years; the last one prior to this was done in 2019.

The knife is the same swayback Lambsfoot patterns that Eric has been making for a couple years now: 3 5/8” closed, a satin-finished CPM154 blade, and stainless liners and bolsters. The handle material is a vintage Micarta from the 1950s/60s, which Eric sourced from Poland. It came in a large cylinder measuring 4” in diameter and about 6.5” long. According to Eric’s Polish source, these Micarta cylinders were used in elevators, though we couldn’t really figure out exactly how they were used. Perhaps just as an electrical insulator, maybe something more interesting, but who knows. If we have any Guardians here who are experts in mid-century Polish elevators, feel free to chime in!

Eric cross-cut the cylinder into disks that were the proper thickness he needed for scales. Of course, cutting into a big hunk of Micarta like that, we didn’t really know what the finished product would look like, but I have to say I’m quite happy with the end result. It has a somewhat more rustic look than, say, vintage Westinghouse Micarta, but I think that gives the knives an extra bit of character. The color is a warm butterscotch tan, with a bit of grey here and there, and (on some of the knives) sporadic dark brown spots. The texture/grain of the Micarta varies from knife to knife.

For previous Guardians SFOs, Jack would always take a big group shot of all the knives laid out on his table, so I figured I should probably do the same.

Now, as we all know, discussion of purchasing knives is against the rules of both the subforum and this thread, but I will briefly address how the distribution of these knives was handled to hopefully answer any questions those of you seeing this for the first time might have and hopefully help avoid any discussion about buying. I believe these knives belong in the hands of the folks who have helped this thread what it is today, and the fairest way I could think of to do that was to offer them to Guardians based on participation in the thread. I pulled quite a bit of data from over the past year, and came up with a list of the people who had contributed the most in that time period, with some allowances made for longtime Guardians members (even if the frequency of their recent posts didn’t put them up at the top of the list). I reached out to these members starting last weekend, only reaching out to as many people as I had knives available. If someone opted out, I moved to the next person down the list.

Long story short, these knives are all essentially spoken for at this point. There are a few Guardians I’m still waiting to hear from (unfortunately it seems the recent forum upgrades have caused some issues with notifications for PMs), so there is a slight possibility that I might reach out to one or two more people on the list that I haven’t contacted yet, but I will be sticking to the list, so please don’t message me asking if you can buy a knife. I wish I had enough knives to offer to anyone and everyone who wants one, but of course we all know it rarely works out that way, and I’m grateful Eric was able to make as many as he did for us.

One thing that I haven’t mentioned yet is the special liner stamp that I asked Eric to do for these knives. Sheffield cutler (and Jack’s friend) Stan Shaw, along with other cutlers working for Ibberson’s, including Stan’s mentor Ted Osborne, would sometimes stamp their initials and the year inside the liners of knives they made. This was, at least in part, a practice done to keep other cutlers from nicking parts off each others workbenches, but it has also, more recently, served as a means for collectors to identify knives that were made by Stan. So, as a way to identify our Guardians knives, and as a nod to Stan Shaw, I asked Eric if he could do a similar stamp inside the liner of these. Here’s a liner stamp on a Stan Shaw knife (I believe this photo is @waynorth Charlie’s), which I sent to Eric as an example of what I had in mind.

And here is the Guardians stamp that Eric did on the liner of these knives, GL for Guardians of the Lambsfoot, and 24 for 2024.

Eric was kind enough to share some pics with me while he was making the knives, which I’ll share soon in a separate post, but for now I’m just excited for you all to get these in hand, and I can’t wait to see your pics of them. I hope y'all like them! Thanks to Jack Black for allowing me to take this project on, and thanks of course to Eric ea42 for making these knives for us!

I know what Lambsfoot I’ll have in my pocket today.

Congratulations to you btb01 ea42 and Jack Black you’ve knocked it out of the park!

I’ve got a feeling these beauties will be making quite a showing in this thread from many members for some time to come.

 

[echoscout]

Afternoon Guardians. Another big day with the arrival of the GL-24. That called for another Chip Buttie.

 

[Rufus1949]

Good afternoon everyone !


G.Butler today

View attachment 2638475



View attachment 2638476

Oh so nice Steve.

 

[Rufus1949]

Afternoon Guardians. Another big day with the arrival of the GL-24. That called for another Chip Buttie.

View attachment 2638600View attachment 2638601

I just love that old micarta.

 

[birdsbeaks]

I'll enter!

My first lambfoot was this A. Wright in stag and was one of the few I could find for sale online after discovering this thread and the pattern. I can safely say that if not for this thread and Jack Black I'd likely have never encountered them.

My first impressions of the knife were quite critical. The action was a 10 (thankfully, and after countless hours of fiddling, polishing, and sometimes even using, it has settled in at a comfortable 9.5 ), the stag is waxy, porous, and with large sections of exposed pith, it has sizable gaps between the spring and liner, and those are just the glaring issues. I'm thinking about recovering it. It would be difficult to degrade it further, I think. It took multiple shots and incredible photo editing effort just to get it to look this good.

That said, I put it to use (when I could open it) and found the pattern and primarily the blade shape very usable for the kinds of tasks I regularly encountered - tasks in which the added precision and control of the lambfoot tip, in comparison to a sheepsfoot for instance, were welcome.

Beyond the practical utility of the design, I find the history of the pattern fascinating and am always eager to see both well-worn historic examples as well as the fresh, modern creations from the many talented makers who have taken it on including CDB, Kroo, Waynorth, DFKB, and Albers to name just a few.

This thread, and all the great folks in it, are one of the main reasons I keep coming back to BF! Congratulations on 100,000 posts and here's to another 100,000 more! Long live the lambfoot!