Personalized Buck Vantage

GundaManiac

GundaManiac

Joined
Apr 18, 2011
Messages
487
Hello there. I've been a lurker for a couple of months now. Got introduced to these forums after making my first knife purchase (a BuckLite 486). A couple weeks later, I retired the knife to my drawer after I realized I preferred screw construction instead of pin construction because I wanted to be able to take apart and clean and otherwise maintain my knife. I decided to get a Vantage after checking out reviews and comments on this forum. I mean, aesthetically pleasing design, flipper, thumbhole, Buck, made in the USA? Hell yes! So I checked out the local knife shops, surplus stores, and walmarts, and none of them carried the Vantage! So I resorted to the bay and got myself a nice WallyWorld-edition 345 Dymondwood Select.

I opted against the standard Select because I really loved the look of the Dymondwood scales, and I opted against the Avid for two reasons- 1) I'm a really cheap (and asian) college student, and 2) I wanted a knife with Buck's 420HC steel even if the Sandvik 13c26 was considered to be superior and more premium.

I've EDC'ed this blade for the past two months and it's been excellent to me. In this short time, the knife has become very personal to me. I've learned to sharpen on this knife (not because it was dull in any way, but just because I wanted to learn to sharpen and had to reprofile the edge to make it match the angles on my Eze-lap guided sharpening set anyway), polished the phosphor bronze washers and their mating surfaces (opens oh-so-silky-smooth now), polished up the liners, polished the Dymondwood (I didn't really like the dull finish on the wally-world scales) and customized it with a little dragon insert in the handle replacing the Buck logo insert.

I milled the Dymondwood scale, but didn't fixture it properly. The scale slipped and it chipped terribly (oops). I was cussing up a storm for a few minutes while trying to sand out the chips. The result is a very rounded edge around the coin insert which has really grown on me since. The dragon is silver FIMO (a polymer clay) on top of a layer of black FIMO on top of a dime (again, I'm a cheap college student with limited means). It's not much, but it definitely marks this knife as mine.

Pics (Closed):
P1050780.jpg

P1050775.jpg

P1050777.jpg

P1050779.jpg
 
I used some Novus #2 plastic polish on it. It takes a shine really easily. It's not super glossy- I assume that some of the wood fibers are exposed to the surface and detract a bit from the gloss you get from polishing up the impregnated resin around the fibers- but it was good enough for me.

I actually had a chance to compare my knife with an Avid model, since after I bought mine one of my local shops started carrying the 341. The finish on my knife is glossier than the satin-y smooth shine on the Avid. I think that adds to the knife's character, since its finish differs from both the satin shine on the Avid scales and the duller finish on the WallyWorld Dymondwood Select scales. I'm not gonna confuse my Vantage for anyone else's any time soon =P
 
Last edited:
Sweet. I have the same knife and mine is actually about as smooth and shiny just from all the flipping and fondling I do every day with it. Love the 420HC with the Dymondwood, can't say enough about it. It will be in my pocket the rest of my life.
 
Yeah, I just can't put down my Vantage. I'm addicted to the flipper action. It flips open more easily (IMO) than my friend's spring-assisted thumbstud equipped Kershaw Blackout.
 
A couple of teammates and I were working late in the shop at campus tonight. We were wiring and had a heat gun out, and by happy accident we found a bag of marshmallow Easter bunnies. Being college students, we speared a couple of the marshmallows and roasted them with the heat gun.
P1060086.jpg

From left to right- a Kershaw carabiner knife, my Vantage, and a Gerber Gator. Good times P=
 
It's a shame three more of my teammates weren't there when we were roasting marshmallows. They EDC a Kershaw Leek, Kershaw Blackout, and ZT 200. Kershaw has a big following in our team.

I hand rubbed the scales with the Novus polish. It might get a better shine with a Dremel or other rotary tool, but I'm a bit wary of trying that on my knife without first knowing how the resins will react to high speed rotary tools, and I don't have a spare piece of Dymondwood. Anyone here have experience working Dymondwood?
 
Alrighty, after a month or so of deliberation, I finally bit the bullet and got myself a Paradigm Avid, the gadget-y "higher end" brother of the Vantage. It's a really slick knife, I like it a lot. The 13c26 blade was sharp out of the box and easy to strop to scary sharp levels. The micarta scales appear, to my eyes at least, to be alternating layers of black and gray, with the gray layers appearing slightly tinted my favorite color, green. The spring assist and the locking mechanism are insanely fun to play with. Also, while I really disliked the satin gray finish of the bolsters at first, they've really grown on me to the point that I almost prefer the look of the bolsters on the Paradigm over the single-piece scales on the Vantage. I still can't make up my mind as to which knife I'd rather EDC regularly.

Anyway, pictures!

Closed:
P1070766.jpg

Note the difference in the angle between the blade and handle in the fully open position. The blade on the Paradigm points down more and makes point control even easier than the Vantage imo:
P1070772.jpg

P1070775.jpg

P1070776.jpg
 
Last edited:
Shift locking mechanism, bolster in "unlocked" position:
P1070797.jpg

Lock pin in "locked" position holding the knife open:
P1070781.jpg

Lock pin in "unlocked" position. Note how the pin is shifted to the right a little compared to the previous image.
P1070784.jpg


All in all, I think the Shift mechanism is ingenious. Overly complicated? Maybe. But a brilliant bit of design. When I accidentally dismantled both bolsters and, consequently, the entire Shift locking mechanism and spring assist while I was trying to Loctite the pivot, it took me four cuss-filled hours to get the knife back together even though I figured out how the pieces fit in the first five minutes of that time. I'm glad I accidentally opened up the bolsters though, it really gave me a greater appreciation of the design of the knife and why the bolsters had to be manufactured using MIM. I wish I had taken pictures of the Paradigm while it was apart, it really is quite nifty.
 
I recently swapped my 420HC blade out for an S30V blade. I also ground down the linerlock to match the contour of the handle better, using a Dremel and progressive grits of sandpaper up to 2000grit. The knife is much more comfortable to hold now, with my index finger sinking into the little contoured portion of the handle similarly to the Paradigm. My knife is now some Frankenstein mix that looks like an Avid but is actually a Dymondwood Select with a Pro blade.

Here's some pictures comparing my knife with a stock Avid. Note the liner difference. IMO, it's aesthetically more pleasing as well as more ergonomic.
P1080052.jpg

P1080055.jpg

P1080058.jpg


S30V, baby!
P1080063.jpg


I've effectively killed its value as a potential collector's item since nothing about this knife is original anymore except maybe the pocket clip. Everything else has been polished up or modified in some way. But it's definitely my knife now and it puts a smile on my face each time I whip it out to use it =D
 
That's some really nice done work and very creative. I have an Avid on the way and might try
a few of your great ideas. Thanks!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top