Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Summer Ends

The heat has finally broken, and Fall seems to be here with cooler temps and rain. Due to changes to my battle assembly ("drill") schedule, I had requested this last weekend off from WSI, but found I was free after all. I had covered a shift for a WSI coworker Thursday night, so after some recovery sleep Friday, I headed back to Pennsylvania.

Sam and I were able to have some hanging-out time as the rest of the family was off with in-laws. Sam and I have been working together on some knives this year. There have been several knife steels I've used extensively over the last 12 years or so, and I've used knives in a few particular applications enough to know some things that work really well.

CDv2 with GunKote and pale jade G10


Sam will be producing a line of large knives that I designed. These knives will be suitable for camp use or make very powerful fighters along the bolo or kukuri "heavy hitter" model. The blades will be about 9" long, and handles will be of micarta. A kydex sheath will be included. I've seen Sam's work. Sam's day job is historical reconstruction, so he usually is rebuilding something while painstakingly matching it to much older construction. I have seen the first two knives of this series, and they are terrific. The 5160 steel used is an excellent big knife/hard use steel because the bit of chrome content adds toughness and some rust resistance, while still being easy to resharpen and keeping an edge.

Initially, the Camp Defenders will be available for $150 shipped, with natural micarta handles, satin finish, and a belt loop attachment on the sheath. $175 gives you a choice of natural or green micarta or light jade G10 handle scales, high-polish or (black or brown) GunKoted blade, and a TekLock or MOLLE attachment on the sheath. These are excellent prices for handmade knives of this size, and I don't know how long Sam will be able to offer them for this. If you want one of the first Camp Defenders at these prices, you can reserve one for $75, with delivery expected within two months after deposit. Send me an email for mailing or PayPal address.

CDv1 with natural canvas micarta and high-polish finish.


v2 is a little heavier and wider-bellied (at bottom):






While at Sam's, I also shot an IDPA match. I'll cover that in more detail in another post.

7 comments:

Old NFO said...

Pics???

J.R.Shirley said...

Probably Monday. :-)

Sara said...

Pic size ratios seem a little off.

Newbius said...

Sabre grind? And, I want one. :)

J.R.Shirley said...

Newbius, convex. :-)

Scott said...

Very nice. One question: Would it be a problem to do a bead blast finish? I don't like shiny much. But that's just me and my hangups, lol.

Very nice knives brother. I will see if I can come up with the scratch.

J.R.Shirley said...

Scott, that's a high-polish finish. Standard isn't that shiny. :-)


HallowE09