10/27/2026
This project came in you my shop as a restoration and preservation. This knife belonged to a family, and it was handmade by one of the family members. Over the years, it fell into disrepair. Until there was nothing left of the handle at all. There was a sliver of a pommel nut. The sheath was cut and damaged, and the retention strap was rotted away. The key in my mind to these jobs it's to do just enough to bring the knife back to life. I was able to get the rust off, and some of the pitting out and I was very careful with the blade, because you could see how the person that made it, filed and shaped the metal. They had soldered the cross guard on so somewhere along the line, someone put a good amount of work into creating this and the handmade sheath that went with it. The owner gave me a block of wood that he wanted to use for the new handle. Since we had no photos or other information to go off of, i just kind of made a guess as to what the old one might have looked like. And because we weren't restoring the handle, we were replacing it, I added that slice of paper, micarta into the oak handle as just a small detail.
When someone brings me their project, I normally put them in the order received but in this case, I pushed it to the front and stayed up late to get this done quickly so a nephew could take this back to his uncle in a nursing home. And let him hold it again. I hope they have great memories to all the scratches on the blade, maybe they took it hunting or fishing in the past and holding it now will bring back all of those great memories once more. It is an honor to be trusted to revive and preserve these old memories!
