Puncher's Knife

Horsewright · Jul 31, 2019

A cowpuncher buddy brought me this knife. He was tired of carrying it in his pocket. He wanted a belt sheath for it, to carry the knife above his right rear pocket. Here's what I came up with:

And an interesting old knife:

The bone was cracked and loose on both sides:

Sometime, somewhere in its history it'd been run over by a buffer:

Just a cool ol cowboyin' knife:

Whadya think?

jec88 · Jul 31, 2019

Nice knife and sheath! What brand is that knife, I can't read the tang. Kind of looks like a Case folding hunter, are both blades clip points?

Fodderwing · Jul 31, 2019

I really like it Dave. Such a classy sheath and Western Boulder Colorado knives are some of my favorites. That is a fantastic copperhead and a big'un! Great work.

glennbad · Jul 31, 2019

What a great sheath to showcase that old beauty Western knife. Beautiful leather work!

Horsewright · Jul 31, 2019

jec88 said:
Nice knife and sheath! What brand is that knife, I can't read the tang. Kind of looks like a Case folding hunter, are both blades clip points?

Thanks look like Dwight got most of your answers for ya. Which is cool cause I didn't know. Yeah both are ground with clips.

Fodderwing said:
I really like it Dave. Such a classy sheath and Western Boulder Colorado knives are some of my favorites. That is a fantastic copperhead and a big'un! Great work.

Thanks Dwight! Yeah he said he was tired of carrying it in his pocket.

glennbad said:
What a great sheath to showcase that old beauty Western knife. Beautiful leather work!

Thanks. He was talking about having the knife re handled as it has some sentimental value to him. I told him disassembling a slipjoint is above my pay grade but I know of a guy......

jec88 · Jul 31, 2019

A knife like this is one is what keeps me interested in traditional knives, and makes me wish that I would just carry one knife so I'd eventually get one that looks this good. That sheath is great as well. Any idea on how long he has carried this knife?

Horsewright · Jul 31, 2019

jec88 said:
A knife like this is one is what keeps me interested in traditional knives, and makes me wish that I would just carry one knife so I'd eventually get one that looks this good. That sheath is great as well. Any idea on how long he has carried this knife?

Thanks, no he should be over today or tomorrow to pick er up. I'll see if I can get some details.

The Shatz · Jul 31, 2019

What’s a cow puncher? Not a term we hear much in the northeast lol beautiful sheath buy the way

kvaughn · Jul 31, 2019

The Shatz said:
What’s a cow puncher? Not a term we hear much in the northeast lol beautiful sheath buy the way

From what I've heard, the term came to be when cows were loaded on train cars for shipment and they poked -"cowpoke" and punched-"cowpuncher" them with a stick or cattle prod through the fence to move them along on to the cars.
Don't know how accurate that is but that's what I heard growing up in Texas. Real working cowboys in Tx didn't care much for the terms. --KV

cjtamu · Jul 31, 2019

Great sheath for a great knife. Nice work.

WhittlinAway · Jul 31, 2019

Nice work, Dave! It looks like it sticks out enough to be easy to grab but in enough to be secure.

Lot of character on that Western, too. :thumbsup:

Hickory n steel · Jul 31, 2019

jec88 said:
Nice knife and sheath! What brand is that knife, I can't read the tang. Kind of looks like a Case folding hunter, are both blades clip points?

It's A nice old Western.

Misplaced Hillbilly · Jul 31, 2019

Great sheath Dave! Simple and graceful and I really like the cant its got,given where the owner wants to carry it looks about perfect. Of the folding hunters,I like the Westerns most. Slim and easy to carry, and the best blade profiles imho. I have one,but its a bit newer with jigged delrin covers. Think I'll carry mine tomorrow :thumbsup:

neal70 · Jul 31, 2019

Shame those scales are so beat up, they have lots of character. If he gets new ones, hold on to the old, mebbe put them on a different smaller knife...
Thanks, Neal

Horsewright · Aug 1, 2019

The Shatz said:
What’s a cow puncher? Not a term we hear much in the northeast lol beautiful sheath buy the way

kvaughn said:
From what I've heard, the term came to be when cows were loaded on train cars for shipment and they poked -"cowpoke" and punched-"cowpuncher" them with a stick or cattle prod through the fence to move them along on to the cars.
Don't know how accurate that is but that's what I heard growing up in Texas. Real working cowboys in Tx didn't care much for the terms. --KV

Years ago there might have been some derogatoriness to the term cowpuncher but no longer. Cowboyese just like every other language evolves over time. A cowpuncher today denotes a type of cowboy, one whose traditions hail from TX, AZ, NM, OK etc. as opposed to someone like me whose traditions hail from here in CA but where these traditions have also spread to OR, NV, WY, MT ID etc. Paulie, the owner of the knife, has cowboyed all over AZ and refers to himself as a "puncher" or a "cowpuncher". He would call me a vaquero/buckaroo or colloquially a "flathatter". Take a look at this trailer for this documentary.

So the young guy riding the paint bucking horse at first is a flathatter for sure. Older feller saddling his horse at 3:25 is surenuff a puncher as is the guy explaining it at 4:17. Cool trailer, someday they are gonna actually release the movie. Anyhoo we were talking about the evolution of cowboyese last Oct. around the campfire. I compete every year at a ranch roping where folks literally come in from everywhere including Europe and Australia to compete. Now these are mostly flathatters as its that kind of roping which is one of the differences between the two schools. Anyhoo a few years ago if you made a great shot everybody would congratulate you by saying that was "wolfy". Last year I made this really hard shot from quite a distance on the heels. My son has the head and as I go to the horn it doesn't feel right, look down and there's a big bird nest of rope there instead of the saddle horn, so I let the rope run until the nest is gone and then I go to the horn. My son is yelling to dally (go to the horn) because he's out of room, he's clear across at the other end of the arena. If he doesn't keep our steer moving my rope will fall off. I've got about two feet of my 60 foot rope left when the nest clears and I dally, stopping the steer. Our Pro (its a Pro Am roping and our pro is the father of the young man on the paint at the beginning of the trailer) gets down does the groundwork and comes over with my rope and says "That was loopy shot". As we're leaving the arena two of the other pros ride over and say Wow that was loopy. Loopy, not wolfy, see the evolution of cowboyese. I'll have to admit it was a pretty badass shot.

Anyhoo thanks guys!

WhittlinAway said:
Nice work, Dave! It looks like it sticks out enough to be easy to grab but in enough to be secure.

Lot of character on that Western, too.

Yeah I made it tight enough that the spring on the knife has to compress a little to get er out.

Misplaced Hillbilly said:
Great sheath Dave! Simple and graceful and I really like the cant its got,given where the owner wants to carry it looks about perfect. Of the folding hunters,I like the Westerns most. Slim and easy to carry, and the best blade profiles imho. I have one,but its a bit newer with jigged delrin covers. Think I'll carry mine tomorrow

Thanks

Puncher's Knife

Knife Moddin' Fool