Attention Select Your Favorite Brown Tone for Sawcut Bone!!

Brown Tone Options - (alphabetical)

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I wouldn't have minded an Ebony, but looking at all the hemlock pictures and from the few i've seen in person ... that's not black it's something in between that has no "pop" to it IMO. And on many examples you can't even see brown. Most of these photos are taken in great lighting and the right angle or you most likely would see no contrast as they appear solid dark in your hand. And as said sawcut will usually show darker than jigged it's hard to equate a jigged knife to what we will get with sawcut. A good contrast would IMO look much better on this knife and bring out the bolsters. If black is the desired affect we should have went with black.
 
Chief Chief , I am glad you are here to give us a fresh perspective from an expert like yourself. There were a lot of great choices that fell by the wayside very quickly. Charlie let us know early on that Soup Bone was not one of our options. Red was edged out by only a vote or two in the last poll. We are now limited to the choices listed in the poll and only two of them have a chance to win. Dark Chestnut/Antique was my first choice as well, but that is not going to happen.
 
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Chief said:
Late to the party but I would vote for sawcut soupbone if it were an option. Antique amber looks great IMO, but didn't get many votes :( Rust red is nice if you like red like I do.


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Antique amber would have been my number one pick as well. I initially went antique yellow, but had to switch to copperhead once it was obvious antique yellow had a snowballs chance in hell😒
 
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Leslie Tomville said:
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The top photograph of my Black Plum 47 might help illustrate the point of how an extremely dark knife shows. That 47 has beautiful purple color in there somewhere. The problem is you cannot see it. The photo was taken outside in my usual location. The knife just looks black, and it is even blacker indoors.

Some are saying that Hemlock is full of nuanced subtle color somewhere deep in the darkness. That may or may not be the case, but color that cannot be seen is irrelevant. We might have to call this the Emperor’s New Knife and constantly keep reassuring each other how beautiful the subtle colors really are, at least until someone points out that it just looks blackish brown.

We often seem to get caught up in the frenzied chase for something shiny and new while ignoring the reality in front of our faces. All that matters is how the knife looks, not how often GEC has used this or that color.
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Fixed it for you. Sometimes things look different away from the microscope and where you can actually see the big picture
But I think it would look even nicer in the hand ... or seen with a better camera ...

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I only had this one for a couple days. Loved the color of the covers, perfect size, was ok with the pull. But dang - there was a small chunk missing from one of the covers, and it got returned. That small missing area made all the worse because I really liked those Hemlock covers! Plan was to get another, but because they were in stock everywhere, I snoozed and lost...doh!

For a Barlow, I can picture the reddish brown areas showing nicely near the bolsters, at the bevels, and at (my favorite) the bare end.

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The Hemlock being adventurous comments crack me up. It strikes me as the equivalent of ordering a cheese pizza. It’s not that it won’t taste good, but why??! There’s so much more you could add! Try some pineapple if you want adventurous! ;) Ha
 
r8shell said:
Well, yeah. That's what we do here. 😁
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Find the itch, scratch it until it's an open sore, then promptly run back into the poison ivy.

r8shell said:
I'm gradually feeling more and more positive about the Hemlock. Worst case scenario, it looks black. Probably black indoors and then revealing some color in bright outdoor light. I think that's kinda cool.
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Originally I'd wanted black camel bone because of the variation we'd naturally get in the camel bone dye job.
In my mind I'd imagined blacks, grays and whites.
This seems like the next closest thing.

r8shell said:
I had a copperhead NF Barlow and traded it for one in ironwood because I wanted a two bladed version. It was very nice looking, if a bit reminiscent of Old Timer Delrin. ;)
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waynorth waynorth was the Old Timer "saw cut" Delrin designed to resemble bone covers, originally?
If so, I think we have the "chicken or the egg" conundrum.
Saying that copperhead reminds us of Old Timer Delrin might actually just be saying that the Copperhead reminds us of copperhead bone covers of yore.
 
mb> said:
The Hemlock being adventurous comments crack me up. It strikes me as the equivalent of ordering a cheese pizza. It’s not that it won’t taste good, but why??! There’s so much more you could add! Try some pineapple if you want adventurous! ;) Ha
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Hmm… I’d see that argument being made more about Copperhead. It’s nice, but it’s a known, with Hemlock being the unknown topping.
 
mb> said:
The Hemlock being adventurous comments crack me up. It strikes me as the equivalent of ordering a cheese pizza. It’s not that it won’t taste good, but why??! There’s so much more you could add! Try some pineapple if you want adventurous! ;) Ha
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That's one way of putting it, I guess, but to be fair, pineapple on pizza is pretty standard over here in the PNW and therefore a bit boring.

It's adventurous because it is a rare dye that has traditionally been very well received and we have the opportunity to see it take on a whole new form. Doesn't sound like a cheese pizza to me...

Ultimately, we see what we want to see and we've gone from Hemlock being too red to now being too dark and too brown. For me, it is interesting and no small amount of amusing - the arguments that have taken shape against it have certainly evolved a bit. The fact remains though, we really do not know what shape Hemlock Sawcut might take - all we have is confirmation from Bill that it will be dark (which shouldn't surprise anyone, it's always been a dark dye). It makes me curious what sort of assurances he might have given with regards to the Hot Pink "Elderberry" from a few years back - I can't imagine that was the intended result, especially given that the example they photographed for their "catalog" mockup is a nice rich color and likely more in line with what was intended.

When it comes down to it, everyone should vote for their most favored option and no one should begrudge each other their respective choices. Right now, it is a choice between "safe, tried-and-true" Copperhead and "new, unknown, and exciting" Hemlock Green. As has been pointed out, just like we cannot predict how Hemlock will turn out, we also cannot predict how Copperhead will either based on all the variances we've seen in the past. Informed, perhaps, but informed that is flavored with that bit of dangerous, yet delicious, uncertainty.
 
I find it funny that usually people are griping about an inconsistent die job on GEC's, yet the allure for the copperhead team is that you get that inconsistent yellow orange color on the edges. Hemlock seems like the richest option, and the more inconsistent the die job is, the better these will likely turn out. If it stays rich throughout, you will still have a beautiful knife. I have a feeling hemlock sawcut is going to be beautiful.
 
Just an idea or two here... I'm sure variation is normal for dye jobs, probably due to bone density and inconsistencies in dye color.
What if we said "Hey Bill... Hemlock Green please, but could you go a little lighter"?

From what I've seen of the hemlock, it looks like it really gets a lot of character from the hafted and buffed areas.
Maybe it's as simple as saying "buff the saw cut slabs!". It'd be like the "pocket worn" treatment that Case does.

There's two options that might be feasible and get a better following for hemlock...
(Because I know you all see that sweet deep reddish mahogany in there... 😉 )
 
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