Pictures really don't do the desert ironwood justice. Beautiful, dense burl.
Sexy little @..
I'm not the photographer that Nick is, so it's hard to do this knife justice.
The sheath work is really really good. Great finish, and very nice details. It fits nice and snug.
Being a fighter that's 1/3" thick at the ricasso
, it's weighted a bit forward of the guard which will lend some impetus to any swing/blow. However, it's has a ton of distal taper, making it fast in the hand. The amount of action is this hamon is amazing to the point of distraction. There are clouds and ghosts and fuzzies everywhere (yes, that's technical hamon jargon). The handle shaping is sublime. I hope Nick doesn't mind too much, but I'm going to be referencing this handle a great deal as I move to doing more sculpted hidden tang handles. The fit up of the ricasso to the guard is perfect. This one has a sharpened clip as well as a very fine edge. It's a prickly "little" thing for sure.
Now after all those pics and nice talk, I'm sure some of you are thinking, "well sure it looks good, but can it perform." I don't buy a knife to be a safe queen. I buy a knife to use, and to use hard. I started with simple stuff like cutting paper. It will cut a floating page of 20-weight paper cleanly in two without a thought. I've got some videos of that I'll post later. Next, I took it out and started hacking up a 2x4 in the shop. Not a bit of edge rolling or chipping. I had some really tough old pine knots, so I baton'd the blade an through (hard to do with a sharpened clip), and it help up like a champ. I did a few car-hood penetrations followed by stabbing the tip into a cinder block about 10 times. There was a bit of edge damage following those two, but it still cut nicely. From there, I did a free-drop tip first into the concrete from 3.5 feet up. The tip didn't suffer at all, and I actually made a nice little indention in the concrete pad.
Ok....so none of that testing beyond paper cutting actually happened
. This one IS going in the safe for my enjoyment, and someday for my son's enjoyment. However, if the zombie apocalypse every happens, it's getting strapped on to my hip along with all the handguns and ammo I have.
I have seen some amazing work by a bunch of different smiths through the years at various shows. I can say without hesitation that this level of fit and finish is among the best. Are there those that can match it? Sure. But this in my mind is just about as good as it gets. :thumbup::thumbup::thumbup:
--nathan
