r8shell
Knifemaker / Craftsman / Service Provider
- Joined
- Jan 16, 2010
- Messages
- 25,573
It's a not infrequent occurrence that someone starts a thread thanking another poster for the gift of a knife. Aside from admiring the generosity, I'm often struck by the thoughtfulness of the particular gift.
Way back when I first became a paying member here, I had to choose a picture for my avatar. Whenever I find an old knife, I try to do a little research on it, get an idea of its age, etc. I had recently found a very well-worn Western whittling knife, and had downloaded a catalog scan of it, just to see how it looked with full blades. It was up on the desktop, so I selected it to upload. I had a vague intention of switching out different catalog cuts of vintage pocket knives from time to time, and this one seemed like a good one to start with. It was the type of old knife I enjoyed finding at flea markets and pawn shops: an interesting and useful selection of blades, well crafted but not so precious and rare that I'd hesitate to use it. Just a classic example of a good old pocket knife, not to mention sunken joints and a federal shield.
I never did change it, and that Western Whittler stayed my avatar.
Fast forward to this week, and I receive a package in the mail from
WhittlinAway
. Inside is a couple triangle blocks of wood for whittling, and a minty-fresh specimen of my avatar knife, a Western No. 6504 Wood Craft Knife! Thank you so much, Greg. Carrying this one will be like carrying my own personal Forum Knife.
Way back when I first became a paying member here, I had to choose a picture for my avatar. Whenever I find an old knife, I try to do a little research on it, get an idea of its age, etc. I had recently found a very well-worn Western whittling knife, and had downloaded a catalog scan of it, just to see how it looked with full blades. It was up on the desktop, so I selected it to upload. I had a vague intention of switching out different catalog cuts of vintage pocket knives from time to time, and this one seemed like a good one to start with. It was the type of old knife I enjoyed finding at flea markets and pawn shops: an interesting and useful selection of blades, well crafted but not so precious and rare that I'd hesitate to use it. Just a classic example of a good old pocket knife, not to mention sunken joints and a federal shield.
I never did change it, and that Western Whittler stayed my avatar.
Fast forward to this week, and I receive a package in the mail from
WhittlinAway
. Inside is a couple triangle blocks of wood for whittling, and a minty-fresh specimen of my avatar knife, a Western No. 6504 Wood Craft Knife! Thank you so much, Greg. Carrying this one will be like carrying my own personal Forum Knife.
Last edited:
I'm tempted to post some of my sorry "projects" in Greg's whittling corner thread just to show that not everyone has the talent to whittle (but even I enjoy using my knife to mess around on little projects). 
