Hello All, I hope everyone is doing well. Here is something I’ve been working on for the fall hunting season, I hope you like it. Thanks again, J. "Piggy-back Hunter Set" in Multi-dyed Burl This pair of full-tang Hunters will cover a lot of bases. The larger, "main knife" of the set is forged from 52100 high carbon steel and has my "antiqued" finish for ease of maintenance and no-shine qualities. The knife is 10 1/4" overall with a 5 1/8" cutting edge. The handle scales are multi-dyed and stabilized A-grade burl wood done in a "palm swell" style. The handle has a "coffin" profile and is secured with two stainless steel handle bolts and a matching lanyard liner. The smaller "side knife" matches the larger knife in all ways except it is forged from 1084 high carbon steel, everything else mimics the larger knife including the handle scales coming from the same block of wood. This smaller one has an overall length of 7 1/4" and a 3 3/8" cutting edge. The fixed "piggy back" sheath by Chuck Dominick at Chuddy Bear Leather is fully textured in two-tone leather with a belt loop and the blades are secured in the sheath with rare earth magnets as well as the fit.
Beautiful pair J!!! I really like the way the antiqued finish compliment those scales. Keep up the great work!!!
Thanks guys. It's funny, I started doing that blade finish about 6 or so years ago for military folks and when I took it to the knife shows, everyone told me how ugly it was for a whole year before it caught on. Now I do way more "antiqued" finish blades than hand-rubbed. ; )
No sweat, it's actually pretty easy. You can finish your blade up to a 400 grit finish and then coat it with plain yellow (cheap) mustard. I usually coat the blade and then us a Popsicle stick to add "highs & lows" to the mustard (kinda lightly smack the blade with the stick). You can let the mustard sit on the blade for as long as you like (I’ve left it on for as long as 2 weeks). If you leave the mustard on overnight, you'll have a good dark finish. The longer you leave the mustard on, the more patterning you will have on the finished project. Once you're ready to move on, take Clorox bleach and heat the bleach to just below boiling (do this wearing a respirator and in a well ventilated area) and put the blade in, mustard and all. Leave the blade in the bleach for approx. 3 min., then pull the blade out and scrub it down with course steel wool (it'll look like the blade is rusting before your eyes). Now put the blade back in the bleach and repeat this process 4-8 times, depending on how dark you want your blade. Once you have achieved the depth of finish you want, put the blade into baking soda/water and boil it for 15-20 min. to neutralize the blade, otherwise it will continue to "rust". That's it, your good to go with a cool looking, non-reflective finish that requires almost no effort to maintain. Also, to date, I have used this same method on 1080-84-95, 5160, 52100, O1, 15N20, M4 & L6 with very good results. I hope this helps, J.
