- Joined
- Dec 5, 2009
- Messages
- 10
I have just joined a select club. Completely unexpected by me, a package showed up in my mailbox today from Davis, California. You can all guess the return name on the package, I'm sure.
Nestled inside, carefully wrapped, was a Koyote-crafted sgian dubh. And it is, indeed, black as the night in either of its two Koyote Girl scabbards. I'd include photos, but I really don't have good enough light for decent photos right now ... but I think most of you have seen Koyote's photos of this one anyway.
Technically, this is not my first Koyote knife. I have one of his early prototypes, a short (3¼") ipe-hilted 5160 puukko which, since the day I received it, has been one of the three sharpest blades I own. (The other two are a saddler's head knife I had custom-made from A2 tool steel about 25 years ago, and a 650-year-old Mino-school uchigatana.) But this is the first time I've held one of Koyote's production knives in my hand.
The heft immediately says that this is a knife made for business. It sits in the hand with neutral balance and a reassuring presence. The hilt is just long enough to tuck comfortably into the heel of the hand with the thumb against the slight, but adequate, rest. It points without effort. The 4¼" differentially-tempered 1084 carbon steel blade is satiny smooth, just the very slightest of tool marks in the right light bearing witness to the hand work that went into shaping it. Is it sharp? I can't get a blade sharper than this myself.
Like almost all of Koyote's knives, it has a full-length, full-width, full-thickness solid tang that looks all set to outlast the owner's grandchildren. The paper-micarta hilt is a deep, lustrous black, set off by the three pins two ⅛" plain stainless steel pins in the wrist of the hilt, one complex pin in the heel that's almost like a tiny jewelled mandala. That's jewelled in the engine-turned sense, not in the Tiffany sense. Strictly no bullshit socialite bling on this knife, just the one little accent. At first glance you could mistake it for a Torx machine screw head, then you take a second look and realize it's nothing so mundane. (Koyote mentioned once what the latter is called, but I don't remember the name.)
Anyway, that's first impressions. More later, and I'll try to get some photos tomorrow.
Nestled inside, carefully wrapped, was a Koyote-crafted sgian dubh. And it is, indeed, black as the night in either of its two Koyote Girl scabbards. I'd include photos, but I really don't have good enough light for decent photos right now ... but I think most of you have seen Koyote's photos of this one anyway.
Technically, this is not my first Koyote knife. I have one of his early prototypes, a short (3¼") ipe-hilted 5160 puukko which, since the day I received it, has been one of the three sharpest blades I own. (The other two are a saddler's head knife I had custom-made from A2 tool steel about 25 years ago, and a 650-year-old Mino-school uchigatana.) But this is the first time I've held one of Koyote's production knives in my hand.
The heft immediately says that this is a knife made for business. It sits in the hand with neutral balance and a reassuring presence. The hilt is just long enough to tuck comfortably into the heel of the hand with the thumb against the slight, but adequate, rest. It points without effort. The 4¼" differentially-tempered 1084 carbon steel blade is satiny smooth, just the very slightest of tool marks in the right light bearing witness to the hand work that went into shaping it. Is it sharp? I can't get a blade sharper than this myself.
Like almost all of Koyote's knives, it has a full-length, full-width, full-thickness solid tang that looks all set to outlast the owner's grandchildren. The paper-micarta hilt is a deep, lustrous black, set off by the three pins two ⅛" plain stainless steel pins in the wrist of the hilt, one complex pin in the heel that's almost like a tiny jewelled mandala. That's jewelled in the engine-turned sense, not in the Tiffany sense. Strictly no bullshit socialite bling on this knife, just the one little accent. At first glance you could mistake it for a Torx machine screw head, then you take a second look and realize it's nothing so mundane. (Koyote mentioned once what the latter is called, but I don't remember the name.)
Anyway, that's first impressions. More later, and I'll try to get some photos tomorrow.
Grend you got a sweet blade there
:thumbup:The mosaic pin really sets it off...Damn, now I might have to order one 
