Is this “gardless” design viable?

[Patrice Lemée]

I really like the look of a small hunter/bowie like this without a guard.

I would think that with the handle shape it would be a pretty safe knife to use. I mean without too much chance of the dreaded “hand slipping up the blade” thing. But I know very little about the actual use of this type of knife in the field so I would appreciate the “experts” input.

 

[RyanW]

Hey Patrice, I will chime in just for giggles! I think it looks great. Construction wise: it looks like it would be as strong as a traditional guard.

Safety wise: My personal feeling is we know where the sharp bits are, and no guard will completely stop accidents from happening. If I owned that knife and cut myself with it, I would not blame the maker.

Let us know when you get going on it!

 

[stevomiller]

I'm fine with guardless knives for field dressing critters. This particular handle has features to help with registry and retention, which is a plus.

I really like the blade shape, and the handle shape is great. However (to me) the parallel bolster and ricasso detract from the flowing 'organic' lines of the other features.

Best
Steve

 

[Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith]

Even a small "nub" on the bottom of the bolster will make it more user friendly. It doesn't need a honkin' "S" guard, but some sort of device to keep the hand placed is a good feature. This would also optically break up the somewhat long straight look of the ricasso/bolster.

 

[Justin King]

For a skinner I think it's probably fine and even more useful that way. For more general-purpose use I prefer knives with a guard protrusion, but in most cases safety is more about the user, and the type of use, than the knife itself.

 

[jdm61]

Pat, take a look at Erik Markman's integral knives. He makes some that are similar.

 

[SBuzek]

Just my .02,The only thing that sticks out to me is the butt of the knife,looks upside down,would prefer the point on the bottom and the smooth rounded on top for comfort in the hand.
Other than that it looks goood.
Stan

 

[Patrice Lemée]

Thanks for the feedback guys. I get what you are saying about the guard ricasso being a little "straight". I'll see what I can do about that, maybe in the shaping/decoration of the guard. I don't want to angle it too much, since it is quite simple I would like to keep it a little straight to make it stand out that way and "anchor" the more flowing handle and blade. If that makes any sense to anybody but me.
Stan, I agree about the butt, this is the first draft and will surely get modified when I get to the highly technical "cardboard cutout" phase. I don't know how many designs I did where, when I got it profiled in cardboard, I went realized that it did not work and sometimes it was so bad that I wonder how I didn't see it beforehand.

Joe these integrals look good and I see how he did it with a wider blade to act as a guard. I even looked into a removable guard. Or nub like Stacy suggested. But since my goal is to keep things simple I would rather not.

Thanks again for your input guys, I appreciate.