I Want One - A Not So Occasional Series Pt14

From pommel to tip 9 5/8" With the blade 5" of that. Ground from Crucible's 5/32" D2 hardened to 60Rc.

Handled in Green Canvas Micarta with white liners and stainless steel pins.

The price? $495

I've got a whole drawer full of knives so I guess the $500'll probably be going somewhere else in the foreseeable, but tiz luv-er-lee and I do WANT ONE!

If you're feeling flush you can get in touch with the man himself.

Charles May
Charles May Knives
10024 McDonald Rd.
Aberdeen, MS 39730
662-369-0404

Catch you soon
Your pal
SBW

Blogs & Blades3

Well there finally comes a day, after all the waiting; first by me for Black Rabbit to finish the knife, and then by Black Rabbit for me to write this post.......Da DA

Let the Unboxing commence

One of the best things about being a blogger is the email correspondences I've had with other denizens of the bloggersphere. A while back I started an email correspondence with another blogger, a chap who lives down under and writes as Black Rabbit. He used the google follower function to join team bushwacker, i reciprocated and after a few comments on each others blogs we started another conversation by email. His blogging went quiet and then came back to life. Then one day as I sat in my hotel room day dreaming of being able to afford a custom knife to my delight he emailed and asked me to review his output as a knife maker.

We talked/emailed about trends in knife making, the dating perils that the devilishly handsome must endure, and all kinds of other important stuff. The end result of these conversations is what you see above, Scandi ground, Hunter blade shape, the lashing holes to harvest high hanging fruits, welded butt plate, in my favorite 'So-That's-Where-It-Is' Orange, and with a southern cross emblem.

The Handle shape has a 'manga-ness' to it that I really like - very different to the design conventions of knife making and, like it or loathe it, is all the better for it. Not every day that we see a maker who is trying to do something different.

As far as the true tests go:

Feels great in the hand - locks in well to my grip and has a nice balance

But here's where I have to admit to breaking my own rules for testing, I just can't bear to beat it up the way I normally would! Arraggh! So against everything i believe in (and have mouthed off about) I now own a knife that I'm too precious about to use for the heavy work its maker intended. WTF!

Thanks to Black Rabbit for all your hard work at the bench and patience.

Your pal

SBW

Sgian Dubh

Click here for a full scale picture to get the full effect - awesome work

Been a while since we've had a spot of knife pr0n* on the blog, but while I was researching some Scottish folklore for another project I stumbled upon this handsome little fella. The Sgian Dubh (say it Skein Du) means 'knife dark' in the celtic tongue and is traditionally worn poking from the top of a long woollen sock. 

There are several schools of thought on the history of the SD, with some commentators seeing them as the smaller half of a pair of field knives worn by a Gillie or guide. Others claim the design comes from an earlier concealed carry that was worn inside the sleeve of a shirt or jacket.  An overlapping theory has it that the Sgian Dubh found it's place in the Caledonian tradition as the only EDC permitted after the disarming act of 1746. 

The vast majority of Sgian Dubh seen on the web are purely decorative and part of highland formal dress - basically, they're purely ornamental and you wear 'em at weddings. For locations were there is a prohibition on the wearing of small daggers while copious amounts of alcohol are being consumed one company has launched the Sgian-Brew.

This example is a totally different story:  a 4" blade of Devin Thomas "spirograph" damascus which has been gun blued, given a nickel-silver guard and stabilized ebony handle. It was made by a chap called Mike Mooney of Queen Creek AZ who has won numerous awards for his knife making skills. Have a look - you'll see why.

Your pal

The Bushwacker

PS If you thought custom knives were expensive - wait 'till you see the price of Kilts!!!

*knife pr0n = knives that I'd like to get my hands on but likely never will.

Blogs & Blades 2

Black Rabbit has sent me this picture of the work in progress. I'm lovin' the Hunter blade shape and as you can see he's really got it. We toyed with keeping the rasps of the file but while they look way cool they're a bit of a rust trap, and if the blade were ever to be used for its intended use on an Elk hunt they'd me an excellent breeding ground for bacteria. So this time function will dictate form.
We been batting back and forth ideas about blade thickness; a Mora sometimes looks a little flimsy (proven not to be - but they're SO thin) and the Fallkniven F1 often seems like overkill with its 5 mm of super steel. Black Rabbit's going to work the blade so the spine will retain plenty of metal, while everything towards the cutting edge will be thinned to give the blade a little of the Mora's finesse.

Once again massive thanks Black Rabbit 

Your pal

The bushwacker

Blogs & Blades

'You Cant Always Get What you Want. You can't always get what you want. And if you try sometime you find You get what you need''

A few weeks ago I was sitting in my hotel room, surfing away, looking at the output of customer knife makers. As yer do.
Trying to resist exposing you dear reader to further outbursts of my avaricious 'I Want One - a not so occasional series' posts, and fighting the urge to bankrupt myself when,it was as though the the kit collecting god smiled upon me. 

 I received an email from Black Rabbit who writes the Obsidian Rabbit blog

....... I'd like to ask you to review one of my knives. In return for your time, I'll happily make you the knife to your specifications and send it to you before you write the review - this way you'll be able to play/work with it first, get a feel for it, and be able to form your own honest opinion. Now don't get me wrong - this knife would not be payment for a favourable review - you can say write whatever you want about it, as long as it's fair (but I wouldn't expect anything else) - and after you've posted, the knife remains with you, for keeps.

Well YE HARRRR!!!! I waited all of .00000001 of a second before biting his hand off - right up to the elbow!!!!

So we've been bouncing a few emails back and forth, chewing a few ideas over and the project is coming along nicely. Very nicely.

We looked at three wildly differant ideas:
The Hunter - my favorite interpretation is the fallkniven TK5 and TK6
The BIG Leuku - The Sammi design that's sort of half way point beteen a camp chopper and a machete
The Bushtool - a relatively new design pioneered by Rod Garcia which he calls the skookum bushtool

I've never been remotely interested in the 'woodlore' style bushcraft knife developed by Ray Mears, I'm sure they're great but they just don't speak to me. The bushtool on the other hand looks like something really genuinely different and i've been keen since the first review i saw.

Here's a few of the reviews I've seen over the last couple of years
Bushcraftuk with a field test in the jungle

Britishblades with a moan about the ordering process
Dirt Times review with a bit of background on how Rod Garcia developed the design

karamat (the bushcraft school that hosts Mors Kochanski's training's which inspired the design)
Old Jimbo now hosting the outdoors magazine review

I've only ever seen one traded 'pre loved' and even that was out of my price range. A maker called Mick Spain does his interpretation of the design and it too is both a stunner and unaffordable at this time.

So I was delighted to seize the chance to get my chubby little hands round one. The best thing about having a knife made for you is that all those little details that no one ever seems to get quite right are suddenly solve-able.

Some thoughts:

Not too thick - a thinner blade offers you a little more finesse 

Not wood - handsome rare woods are certainly amazing to gaze at, but a real 'user' will be subjected to the blood and guts of field butchery and may need to be sterilized many times during it's life. Micarta or G10 are the best options for the small scale maker. Micarta is layers of cloth or paper set in resin, G10 is the same idea with fiberglass.

ORANGE - BoB (Brother of Bushwacker) is more of an outdoorsman than any of the armchair warriors posting on the internet even wish they were and he reckons outdoor kit comes in two colors 'where did i put that green? and So that's where it is ORANGE!' 

Deep Choi - the Scandinavian esthetic (popularized by Mors Kochanski) has it that a finger guard only gets in the way. While i agree that it does limit the options for sheath design it also serves the valuable purpose of limiting the potential for a cut finger. Call me a wuss if you like, but I've seen some nasty accidents and had a few not so nasty ones myself. Limiting the potential for disaster is part of the design brief. So a deep 'cut out' that secures the users grip is essential - this one's coming on an Elk hunt and will cut many sandwiches between here and there.

Innovation - Sorry to say this chaps but most knives are just so [yawn] same-old-same-old, the Skookum is different, Raidops aint to everyones taste but his work is different, fallkniven has super cool laminated steel, Wild Steer knives are literally the ugliest thing I've seen since ex-Mrs SBW's sister in law, but at least WSK are trying to do something clever and innovative.  So I was delighted when BlackRabbit tentatively suggested insetting a southern cross into the handle. The Southern Cross is a constellation only visible in the southern hemisphere and a potent symbol of Australia. Different AND it nicely ties the makers work to his locale. 

More news of the project as it comes in

SBW 

PS get Black Rabbits side of the story here

A Tale Of Two Bushmen AKA Bargain Alert

I've been reading the blog written by the American Bushman for ages and marvelling at his knife collection - he doesn't just think 'that looks cool I wonder what it's like to use' he buys one and finds out just exactly how cool each design is. As you probably know after a while it's easy to end up with more stuff than one bushman can practically carry so he's decided to lighten his load by having a bit of a clear out.

Good news for us!

Inspired by the Backyard Bushman's posts about his EDC I've snaffled the Mikro Canadian II by the Bark River Knife and Tool Co. and a few other bits which I'll review as usage allows.
There are still loads of handsome blades for sale - take a look.
Happy Hunting
SBW

Get A Handle On - Restoration

I always think of myself as being 'not all that' at handy crafts so it was a pleasant surprise to see how easy some of them can be. On Friday The Fat Controller gave me a shed he'd found while hiking in the highlands of Scotland. Regular readers will know that BoB brought round a whole box full of knives and assorted kit from our folks place.Lying unloved at the bottom of the box was the knife pictured above. It's handle a particularly unconvincing piece of faux antler (note the 'charming' depiction of a stag!). The blade had several different grinds, in parts flat,and convex, is also pretty soft steel. It was the kind of knife given to lads as a first sheath knife. The sheath itself was pretty cruddy, the leather un-nourished and the stitching failing or failed.
A few hours later and it a whole new story!
Antler is much easier to work than it looks at first sight. I cut off the bottom left tine with a hacksaw, used the side of an angle grinder blade to sand the surface that meets the finger guard, trued it with an orbital sander. It stinks! Like burning fingernails!! Drilled the first hole with 4mm wood bit in a powered screw driver. Making the hole into a slot to take the blades tang looked difficult, but once I'd convex'd the point of a pig-sticker (you know a spike on a handle - don't know its real name) into a mini blade - it was surprisingly easy to get the recess the right size and shape.
I used two-part glue to set the blade to the tine.
The sheath wasn't in good shape so I roughed off any remaining finish and stained it blue, did some lacklustre back stitching, stained it again to cover up the crappy stitching, and using the cooker hob as a heat source melted four coats of boot wax into the leather.I left the retaining strap in the original colour, took out two rivets from the top of the sheath and replaced them with hollow rivets so the knife can be worn dangling as a 'necker'. All it needs now is a boot lace to hang it from.
Now if I could just get on with that Kuksa.

Hope your weekend was as productive for you
Thanks for reading
SBW

Witch Blades? Nice Work If You Can Get It!

As you know I usually shy away from the 'draw queen' end of the knife making world.
But rules as they say are made to be bent until they're broken.
Having done a bit of school boy forge work myself in the past, I'm a huge admirer of the work these guys do, but fear of loss or damage, and the kind of money that they have to charge for the time they put in, stops me from buying this kind of tool.

Somewhere along the way, surfing the internet, I came across witchblades where the design ethic sits so perfectly between 'artisan recycler' and the 'serious craftsman' that I thought I'd share it with you.
The top half of the blade is from an old railroad spike and the cutting edge is made from a Damascus steel that the maker Rik Palm beat, twisted, and wielded himself.
Rik has published some pictures of the process here and some excellent pictures of what it takes to make Damascus here.Have a look at the gallery where there are too many neat design ideas to shake a stick at. I particularly like the maggot knife and this totally authentic Nessmuk, with it's blade forged from an old file. Without wishing to sound like some new age loon claiming to 'channel' the spirit of bushcraft's grand old man of letters, I reckon it's pretty much what the old chap would have been looking at when he did those drawings of his perfect camp knife.

Thanks for reading
Bushwacker