Handmade knife / blade finish

G

gbuskirk

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May 1, 2007
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Here's a small simple fixed blade I bought off Ebay recently at the opening price. OAL is 8.125". Blade is 3.625" longer and over .125" thick. It feels well made to me - The curve and texture of the antler, the guard, and weight and balance. On the ricasso area there are traces of the original finish - It looks like a chrome plating. The rest of the blade is smooth but file-marks are visible. Some sharpening or file marks are visible on the remaining plating.
Question - The blade appears handmade; would the maker really plate it? Or else, how was the original finish done? Any idea of maker?
antler1.jpg

antler2.jpg
 
Not sure without handling it, but it looks like it was posibly a factory blade that was full tange and re-handled as a hidden tange. Just judging by the way the gaurd is shaped. Looks like the gaurd is split and slipped on.

Don't know about the plating, I haven't personaly seen any hand made chrome plated knives, but it is posible and electro plating is not that hard, though it wouldn't hold up to use very well.
 
It may be that what appears to be bits of chrome plating near the guard is actually silver solder that was not completely removed after the guard was attached.
 
Silver solder makes a lot of sense. Thanks a lot. If I knew more about the knife making process I might have thought of that.
What kind of TLC would you give a knife like this. I sharpened it up (nicely) and put on a light coat of oil. What else would you do?
 
gbuskirk said:
Silver solder makes a lot of sense. Thanks a lot. If I knew more about the knife making process I might have thought of that.
What kind of TLC would you give a knife like this. I sharpened it up (nicely) and put on a light coat of oil. What else would you do?
Click to expand...

Use it!

Ickie
 
Looks re-handled to me. Guard doesnt quite fit the diameter of the antler close enough for having been custom matched. Doesnt mean its not custom made, just might not have its original handle...who knows!

That plating youre seeing could be lots of things....if its not actually flaking off, it could simply be a part of the steel that has some sort of coating on it that prevented it from aging/rusting/wearing.
 
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