Old Sykes/Fairbairn Reborn

[recon1s14]

Haha I guess I've been on a fix-up-my-knives kick recently, which is no surprise seeing as how the weather is nice enough, I've already posted a few of my projects, two here (now three) in Traddy town, since most of these knives are old and traditional, and one in the general thread which was probably not my nicest work but some people enjoyed it, the very encouraging responces I've gotten from these projects has kept me goin to do more Thanks to all who enjoy my work!

At any rate though, here is my latest fixer upper an old Sykes/Fairbairn dagger by R. Cooper made in Sheffield England, when I got this knife it was in terrible condition, the old brass handle had been painted black at some point (don't know if it was from the factory) and was worn to bits, when I saw that I stripped that paint off only to find a downright ugly brass handle beneath, ignoring it I polished up everything as best I could and put a nice hair poppin edge on it and a much better convex tip, that was the extent of my work before today as I was finishing up my Kiridashi I had a sudden spark of ideas to fix up this old blade, I saw a stag handle sittin on my bench, some leather, superglue, a drillgun and saw......this is what became of it

Before

After

I'm really happy with the way this turned out, hope you enjoy

 

[IVANKERLEY]

looks pretty good! you are certainly on a roll
funny story about me an a sykes, back around 1986 or so my buddy (not a knife guy really) loved military stuff and mail ordered a sykes, being a couple of careless 15 year olds we were looking it over, i turned away from my buddy who was still oggling the knife, i spun around gesturing wildly trying to be funny and slice, managed to have the damn thing stab me through the web between my thumb and forefinger...i suppose it was an impalement rather than stabbing as all my buddy was doing was holding the knife, blood everywhere, scared the crap outta my buddy. helluva a way to start off our friday night the darn things still make me nervous
regards
gene

 

[recon1s14]

Haha wow I managed to slice my finger pretty bad while "whittling" with a tacti-lol knife, just trying to be cool I guess, alot of the military knives are more disfunctional for daily use but I think the most disfunctional knives out there is the dagger, it's pretty much made for one thing and thats a quick and clean stab ( or impalement ) This particular Sykes was a gift from a guy I did some work for, he told me he wanted me to clean it and when I got it to him he handed it right back to me but it's been sitting around with that brass handle since then so this is a very nice change of pace to the design

 

[IVANKERLEY]

amazing how just a more traditional material for the handle shifts the feel of the knife, less military dagger and a little more folksy
that being said i'd have to be on guard being around it, english daggers love my hand
regards
gene

 

[vic2367]

great job :thumbup:

 

[recon1s14]

IVAN,

Haha thats exactly what I said after it was done, not only does it make it seem friendlier it also cuts down on the weight by about 3 ounces or however much that brass handle weighed

Vic,

Thanks