Russ Andrews, part 2

I have always loved big knives, but I find that many of them lack balance. The blade and handle can look horribly out of proportion. When looking at this knife by itself, it doesn't look as big as it is. That is a good sign that there is excellent proportional balance.
 
Keith,
As per my PM to you yesterday,you already know what I think about your gorgeous Bowie. :thumbup:
Every aspect of the design on this one are beyond reproach,they all come together perfectly.
Did I mention the ancient ivory is KILLER,as is everything about this special blade. :cool:

Doug
 
This time uncompressed:

orig.jpg


What a KNIFE! Congrats to Keith AND Russ for such work.

Coop
 
Oh yeah, that works. :) Great job Coop - never in doubt.

I agree with Keith about the really big bowies - it's tough to pull off the lines and proportions without something looking "off". For that reason I generally stay at or under a blade length of 12".

But there's no question that Russ pulled off this big beauty with grace and elegance. Once again, just a spectacular piece.

Roger
 
Sorry Coop, I guess I shouldn't worry about the amount of bandwidth I use up on Bladeforums, but it is just something that I have always tried to reduce. In this case it was probably a bad idea, as it reflects on your work. Next time I will definitely mention that I have compressed the image.
 
RogerP said:
Oh yeah, that works. :) Great job Coop - never in doubt.

I agree with Keith about the really big bowies - it's tough to pull off the lines and proportions without something looking "off". For that reason I generally stay at or under a blade length of 12".

But there's no question that Russ pulled off this big beauty with grace and elegance. Once again, just a spectacular piece.

Roger
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I agree on both.

Excellent photo not just in execution, but it captures all attributes of the beautiful Bowie.

This Bowie demonstrates how just single design elements can have a drastic affect on the overall appearance of a knife.

IMO, the long tang on the guard balances the very long blade with the handle. For example, cover the knuckle guard (creating a straight guard) and see how it changes the blade/handle proportions.

And the escutcheon really adds greatly to the appearance and again helps balance the long blade in adding a little additional complexity to the handle.

Very special piece in deed. This is one I would really like to handle to observe the balance and feel. :thumbup::thumbup::thumbup::thumbup:
 
I agree with the comments about pleasing proportions and aesthetic balance, and also have to praise Coop's work in this regard. I have a couple pictures of a great big bowie I took; just snapshots of it laying on my desk. One picture taken more from the front makes it look like a huge blade with a small, ill-proportioned handle. Another taken from the rear makes it look like it has a substantial handle with a much smaller, more tapering blade. Even knowing that the view is distorted because of the angle I took the pictures at, the images really seem to exaggerate things much more than they are due to my lack of photography skills.
 
Nice pic.

Personally, I don't find the proportions of very long bladed bowies pleasing to the eye, and this one gets the same reaction from me despite the obvious mastery in execution. This is probably a personal taste thing.

In any case, congrats on seeing this project through.
 
Joss said:
Personally, I don't find the proportions of very long bladed bowies pleasing to the eye...
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Joss, could you share some more here? I personally disagree, but would like to hear from the opposite viewpoint. If a person wants/needs a rather long blade, would you suggest just going with a different style of knife rather than trying to make it fit within the bowie genre? Are there any particular styles/patterns that you do find pleasing with the longer blades?
 
Joss said:
Nice pic.

Personally, I don't find the proportions of very long bladed bowies pleasing to the eye, and this one gets the same reaction from me despite the obvious mastery in execution. This is probably a personal taste thing.

In any case, congrats on seeing this project through.
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You make a good point Joss as possibly others including myself would not have commissioned a Bowie with this long a blade (perhaps better classified as a short hunting sword). However this IMO is of credit to Russ's great skill in that he was able to pull this off with the mastery you mentioned.

I would even venture to say this is the finest LONGGGGG Bowie I have ever seen.
 
Joss said:
Personally, I don't find the proportions of very long bladed bowies pleasing to the eye, and this one gets the same reaction from me despite the obvious mastery in execution. This is probably a personal taste thing.
Click to expand...

I'd say it is definitely a personal taste thing. Though there are many long bladed knives that I don't care for the look of, there are lots that I find very aesthetically pleasing. To each his own.
 
the possum said:
Joss, could you share some more here? I personally disagree, but would like to hear from the opposite viewpoint. If a person wants/needs a rather long blade, would you suggest just going with a different style of knife rather than trying to make it fit within the bowie genre? Are there any particular styles/patterns that you do find pleasing with the longer blades?
Click to expand...

Hmm... Yes, I do tend to find classic bowies with long and thin blades awkward. I have less of a problem for knives that follow a dirk or Khyber knife pattern, with no guard and no clip. This would be my preference for a display piece.

As far as fighting knives are concerned, I could see this template being very fast with a lot of reach & significant hand protection - not a bad combination! :cool:
 
the possum said:
Joss, could you share some more here? I personally disagree, but would like to hear from the opposite viewpoint. If a person wants/needs a rather long blade, would you suggest just going with a different style of knife rather than trying to make it fit within the bowie genre? Are there any particular styles/patterns that you do find pleasing with the longer blades?
Click to expand...

I don't know if there's actually a definition of Bowie knife in regard to how long it can be, however when I first saw this piece "Russian Hunting Sword" came to mind.
Jerry has make this style of knife, most notably a NLT for the '05 Blade Show. It can be seen in the March '06 Blade Magazine (pg19).
This style, somtimes highly emblished, short sword was used to hunt Boar in Russia.
 
the possum said:
Joss, could you share some more here? I personally disagree, but would like to hear from the opposite viewpoint. If a person wants/needs a rather long blade, would you suggest just going with a different style of knife rather than trying to make it fit within the bowie genre? Are there any particular styles/patterns that you do find pleasing with the longer blades?
Click to expand...

I think blades such as the Mediterranean dirk and many Afghan fighting knives lend themselves aesthetically to longer blades. And of course, a loong tanto looks just as good as a short wakizashi - no real aesthetic danger zone in terms of blade length.

I think anyone that wants / needs a loooong blade need not shy away from the bowie style, but should work closely with the maker on design before hammer ever hits anvil. I remember Ron Newton had a massive 15" or so bladed-bowie at the Blade show a couple years ago. I saw the pics on the forums before the show and thought "I dunno...." Then I got the knife in hand at Balde and could barely put it down.

Roger
 
Probably this is getting into fruitless semantics, but I don't think we are into hunting sword territory here. Those usually have longer, thinner blades than this Andrews piece. Not saying that none exist in these dimensions, but I would suggest that on average they are longer than this.

Roger
 
RogerP said:
Probably this is getting into fruitless semantics, but I don't think we are into hunting sword territory here. Those usually have longer, thinner blades than this Andrews piece. Not saying that none exist in these dimensions, but I would suggest that on average they are longer than this.

Roger
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Actually, the specific style of knife I'm referring to are closer to long Bowies than swords with blades most often from 15"-20". At least the historic examples I have seen. http://www.arms2armor.com/Swords/russ1910.htm
 
Kevin Jones said:
Actually, the specific style of knife I'm referring to are closer to long Bowies than swords with blades most often from 15"-20". At least the historic examples I have seen. http://www.arms2armor.com/Swords/russ1910.htm
Click to expand...

While there's no official upper or lower size limit for a bowie knife, I am of the view that at a 20" blade length, you have left bowie territory and are definitely into the sword realm. Others may have a different view.

Roger
 
Hi Guys,

Thanks for the props. One of the things I do to my images is that I use a lens correction program specific to my 50mm Canon lens. It takes all the distortion out of the image (and if you saw the back to back it would surprise you.) The program is called PT Lens, and it helps these knives look 'real', because of such.

As always, a supermodel always makes the photograper look great. ;)

Coop
 
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