Hi John
When I look at the drawing, it appears that the knife handle is longer than what it appears in the final knife photo. Is this correct? To me I like the longer handle shape in the draw
I'm like Chuck and I find that unfortunately, the dark mark on the bark draws the eye to it as ones eye goes to points of contrast and with so much of the handle being a wonderful light color (different from so many knives) the eye goes to this mark rather than being drawn to the total knife.
I have also expressed to Paul my question of whether this knife needed any engraving as with there being lots of wonderful filework on this knife, perhaps the engraving will not stand out nor will it add to the look of the knife.
I love the design and think Paul will be thrilled and he and I will be sure to have so good conversations about it an others he owns of yours.
Don't know what others think but this is just a few of my observations and of course photos and drawings may not reflect the knife itself.
The original order for this knife was based on a hunter that John had previously made that had caught my eye. The handle on that hunter was framed and was thin and gave the knife an elegant look.
Therefore the first order of business was to find a piece of ivory that that was long and would lend itself to the "thinner" handle design that I had requested.
John found this set of ivory and sent me a photo. I liked what I saw but also questioned John about working the "extra character" in the ivory into the over all knife design. John was convinced that it would work and I agreed.
I had the option of asking John to reverse the slabs so that the "A" side of the knife would have a clean appearance. I'm in agreement with "joeshredd" here; that " the old boy earned that mark." Over all I think what was originally damage to the tusk adds character to the knife.
I especially like knives with blades in the 5" to 7 1/2" range with a long clip When it came time to finalize the order I asked John to change the order from a hunter to a gentleman's bowie. John worked up a drawing of a knife with a single guard. The only change I requested was a double guard.
Murray, the drawing shows a knife with an over all length of 9 7/8" and a handle of 4 7/8." The actual knife is 9 7/8" over all with a handle of 4 3/4."
When I received the photo's of the finished knife from John I was thrilled.
In speaking with John I asked him for his thoughts on having the knife engraved. He agreed with me that it would look nice and a phone call went out to Steve Dunn for his thoughts on the matter.
Murray, if when I ordered the knife I thought engraving was going to be a possibility I would of then most likely asked John not to file work the ferrules.
John and I both have a lot of confidence in Steve's abilities and working in the file work with the engraving was a concern that was addressed with Steve.
John made this project fun. After the engraving the only things left to do are a Paul Long sheath and a " professional photograph."
Paul
