Traditional Recovers?

Let'er Buck

Let'er Buck

Joined
May 13, 2022
Messages
356
I’m thinking of having a few of my GEC’s recovered. What length, width, and depth of material should I be looking to get?

Obviously I want to avoid picking some material up at a knife show and it being too shallow for the maker to have room to work with.

Thanks!
 
I'm pretty sure those who do recovering work have a stock of different materials on hand for you to choose from. You don't have to supply the new cover material, unless it is something really esoteric and/or rare and/or not "normally" used for knife handles (Lemon or Grapefruit wood, for example)?

I'd say "Contact the modder you're going to use, tell him or her what the knives are, what material(s) you want, ask if you need to (or can) supply any of the cover materials, and what thickness you need to get."
 
I would think the slab of material you're thinking to get should depend on the knife. Meaning, the bolster and endcap depth, the distance between them, and the width of the knife. Obviously, whalers may require much wider slab than say a #14 lol.

It should be 'at least' a bit thicker than the depth of the bolster/endcap to give the modder room to work with, to shape and sand.

Regardless, as afishhunter afishhunter hunter indicated, the modder generally has a stock of cover materials and they would definitely know what to get if you wanted to bring your own. Here is my recent from Mr. glennbad glennbad ...He gave me a selection, let me pick it from the selection, and voila!

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Definitely work this out with the person you're going to have do the mods because their process, tools, and methods will dictate a lot of their preferences for stock material dimensions. The material itself will also greatly play into this if you're using bone, stag, horn etc. because those often have to be worked mostly from one side to preserve the character on the other but may have marrow channels etc. and then require the piece to need to be planed down further than you might think.
 
afishhunter said:
I'd say "Contact the modder you're going to use, tell him or her what the knives are, what material(s) you want, ask if you need to (or can) supply any of the cover materials, and what thickness you need to get."
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Certainly, I just didn’t know how much material they’d typically bring it down for contour. Thanks for the response!
 
One other factor to keep in mind, if sending rare or unusual materials to a maker, is that after processing, some material just wont work out due to hidden defects (i have had this happen with abalone shell) or the material is new and unusual to the knife maker and will require more than one attempt for good results (i have had this happen with some rare wood).

Expect problems, issues, disappointment, destruction, etc. when sending your own materials and always send more material than is actually needed. Makers will send back unused materials if you ask them.
 
also be careful with who you go with, or choose wisely. some one messed up one of my 15s once, and it was one of those stainless steel 15s, which arent terribly easy to replace.
 
mrknife said:
the only time i needed to supply the material was when i made sterling scales for an 86. typically the modder has scale materials if its not something unusual
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I haven’t had issues either, I just have access to some specific gcarta and blanket micarta that I like that not all markers have. Sterling scales sound fantastic!
 
mrknife said:
also be careful with who you go with, or choose wisely. some one messed up one of my 15s once, and it was one of those stainless steel 15s, which arent terribly easy to replace.
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Thank you for this advice. I had a blade delete done and a cracked pin. Understandable because of ironwood’s brittle nature. I definitely would want to be mindful, thanks for the tip
 
In most cases, you don't need much more than 1/16" material but it is good to have a little extra to flatten and manipulate as needed. The scales on most traditional knives are very thin.
 
I know there are people here that do recover traditional knives. I have some dead skunk acrylic that has to go. Can someone direct me to a reputable member that does it. Thanks

Paul
 
When customers supply material for me to use on their knives, I usually look for a minimum of 1/4" wider and 1/2" longer than needed. Thickness doesn't need as much, maybe a 1/16" or 1/8" over.

Now, stag is a different story altogether...depends on how it will be hafted down, how the ridges and valleys will sit when done. The curve(arc) of the stag dictates the end look much of the time.
 
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