We have all had one or more. I have had several over the years, having been blessed with a father who first turned me loose with a knife on my fourth birthday.
I have a new, unused 440C Ruana Model 96 MP, one of the very few non-Busse knives I own. I bought it for only one reason. It is almost a dead ringer for a very special knife I once had.
It was a Boy Scout sheath knife. In my youth I busted up a lot of cheap hardware store fixed blades throwing them, mostly using the outhouse door as a target. ( Dad didn't care as long as he wasn't in it at the time.) I shouldn't have been throwing the higher quality scout knife, but I did and broke the upswept tip off. Dad took it to the cotton mill machine shop where he worked and re-ground it into a beautiful new blade shape which I now know was a classic semi-skinner but this was long before he or I had ever heard of such. It was much improved over the original blade pattern. I loved that knife! I kept the thin carbon steel blade razor sharp. Almost all of the rabbit and squirrel I ever dressed was with this knife, as well as my first deer. cleaned a ton of fish, also.
Somewhere during my college years it disappeared as my priorities had shifted to the fair sex. For years I have searched for the identical Scout knife at gun shows so I could try to modify it, but I received it in 1958 and have not found its exact copy as I remember it. Then while perusing the Ruana site one day there it was, the identical blade shape and size, same feel, also. I had to have it, mostly for the memory of the great man who ground the original. The only real difference is the Ruana does not have the stacked leather washer handle of the original and the blade stock is somewhat thicker. If my old back ever allows me to kill another deer I will use this knife to field dress it.
It lives on a bookcase next to my PC now. I occasionally fondle it and remember.
I have a new, unused 440C Ruana Model 96 MP, one of the very few non-Busse knives I own. I bought it for only one reason. It is almost a dead ringer for a very special knife I once had.
It was a Boy Scout sheath knife. In my youth I busted up a lot of cheap hardware store fixed blades throwing them, mostly using the outhouse door as a target. ( Dad didn't care as long as he wasn't in it at the time.) I shouldn't have been throwing the higher quality scout knife, but I did and broke the upswept tip off. Dad took it to the cotton mill machine shop where he worked and re-ground it into a beautiful new blade shape which I now know was a classic semi-skinner but this was long before he or I had ever heard of such. It was much improved over the original blade pattern. I loved that knife! I kept the thin carbon steel blade razor sharp. Almost all of the rabbit and squirrel I ever dressed was with this knife, as well as my first deer. cleaned a ton of fish, also.
Somewhere during my college years it disappeared as my priorities had shifted to the fair sex. For years I have searched for the identical Scout knife at gun shows so I could try to modify it, but I received it in 1958 and have not found its exact copy as I remember it. Then while perusing the Ruana site one day there it was, the identical blade shape and size, same feel, also. I had to have it, mostly for the memory of the great man who ground the original. The only real difference is the Ruana does not have the stacked leather washer handle of the original and the blade stock is somewhat thicker. If my old back ever allows me to kill another deer I will use this knife to field dress it.
It lives on a bookcase next to my PC now. I occasionally fondle it and remember.
). This fixed blade was complemented by a little Buck folder that was a gift from the same stockman, he was a bit of a local icon and he and I got on famously, he and his wife were friends of my Grandmother as well, one day he came into the shop and asked what folder I thought was best, I had loved the lines of the little Buck and told him so, he said that would do him then left with it. Maybe a week later he returned to the shop (in fairness he came in to talk guns most days) but this time he handed me a paper bag, inside was that little Buck, sharpened up, along with the original leather pouch plus a wet molded leather belt slide for it he had made, he just said "that's for you mate", that folder has been everywhere with me, it is packed to go to Africa with me next month. I can't use it and not think of that Old Fella and the stories he had to tell about his youth, the knowledge he imparted on guns and hunting and the humor that only an old timer has and shows to someone he likes. I should add he was also just shy of 7 feet tall. I am sure that the term "Sitting Tall In The Saddle" was coined about him.
