Hello all. I wanted to post some pictures of a knife I just finished up. It is a Buck 501. Original scales removed, and replaced with Bronze and copper. Let me know what your thoughts are.

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May God Bless you, as He has me
Mike Pardue
www.parduesilversmith.com

Tell us what you like best about the work you have done on this knife. Then tell us what you least like about the work you have done on this knife. What was the hardest part when completing this job? Keep the pics coming. It's nice to see.

It Looks good as allways Mike. I noticed you dident put any shadeing cuts in this one. Any particular reason? Just Curious.
Steve

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The winds of heaven blow between a horse's ears
Black Mountain Bits and Spurs & Big Game Hounds

Well what I like best. I like the fit and finish on this, the way the new scales match the liners, and fit up at the bolsters. I also am proud of the engraving, I left the shade lines out on purpose, I saw some work by another fellow, who left the shading out, and just liked the way it looked.
The worst part of doing these knives is making sure you dont solder the lock bar and get it stuck. Sometimes I will pull the lock bar out to avoid this, but didnt on this one, and had no trouble. I do lots of knives, over 60 of them in the last 2 months. I have just about got it figured out, I hope. I guess that leads me to ask you the same questions you asked me. I appreciate your honest opinion. Also if you have any tips or ides, I would like to hear them, and if I can help you, I will do so.

_________________
May God Bless you, as He has me
Mike Pardue
www.parduesilversmith.com

I guess the most puzzling thing for me when hard soldering knives is that the first knife of the batch the solder does not flow as I would like. The rest flow just fine. I don't know why. I can live with that. On your knife, the changes I would like to see would be either a very narrow backbone or no backbone at all. With your engraving style on that knife it would look good with no backbone. All wriggle cuts should be done with a narrow liner. That is a must. A wide wriggle cut on a backbone takes too much away from the focus of the bright cuts.

Thanks for your comments. I am going to try leaving the back bone out of the scroll. I have wanted to do that for some time, thats the problem. I have not taken the time to push myself to try something new. It seems a guy gets bust turning stuff out, and he runs out of time to do some things he wants. I do appreciate your input, and I will try your suggestions on my next knife. I will post a picture, and let you see what happens.
Not sure where you are having trouble getting solder to run on these knives, I dont have any trouble at all. What flux are you using?

_________________
May God Bless you, as He has me
Mike Pardue
www.parduesilversmith.com

I am the same way. I should spend 10 minutes a day with a different style of engraving. As far as the soldering. It does not matter if it is 2 knives or ten knives, the first one is not as good as the second one. I think after the first knife the carbon rods are hot enough that they are not absorbing the heat and you end up with a nice fast sweat on the rest. I use a low temp brazing flux for those. I only use a high temp flux for sweating onto thicker steel (1/4"). Thinner steel I just use a hotter flame to get the job done before the flux burns away. Greg is the King of no backbone engraving. I could stare at his engraving for quite some time. I would like to watch him work. I will look fwd. to your pics.

Mike~ It looks to me that you did a fantastic job soldering this together. Having not lined and cross hatched the scrolls and leaves gives it a definite different look and style. Mike & Haraga~ Do you get these Buck knives at a sporting goods store? For our extended family christmas we draw names and make a gift for each other. I think I would like to attempt to do something with one of these Buck knives. How easy are these to take apart? Any advice would be well received. Thank you in advance for your reply.

Best regards,
Greg Pauline

Moteng is a good supply house. Moteng.com My Spyderco's come from the customer direct. I think ebay or the internet somewhere I saw them they were selling them damned near as cheap as I could buy them from a spyderco distributer. I like your knife idea. Time would be my only issue.

Haraga
Hello, hope your well up there. Send a little cool weather down here would you. Hey I took your suggestion on the engraving. I am adding a couple of puics. One of them is the no back bone scroll. Its done on a piece of scrape, and took just a second to cut it. Am I on the right track here? Overlook the scratches and whatnot on this, and let me know what you think of the engraving. I made another knife today, and cut the back bone with a very fine knife point graver. You are right the smaller wiggle line looks lots better and doesnt take awayt from the rest of the engraving. Let me know what your thoughts are, I look forward to it.
Yes the knife deal can be tough. Finding them cheap is tough, I think e bay and wal mart are cheaper than anyone. I am a dealer,so I get a pretty good price most of the time. Anyway, let me know your thoughts on this engraving.
Mike Pardue

_________________
May God Bless you, as He has me
Mike Pardue
www.parduesilversmith.com

I like your style because it does not look too busy. Good job. Now take the face of your wriggle cut gravers and rock them by hand a little so that you put a slight radius to the cutting edge. That way your wriggle will rock from side to side. Confused yet? When you get some liners for that process you will happy with the results.

Greg
Hello, thanks for the kind words. I am a dealer and can get just about any knife a guy wants. I dont know what wal mart gets on them, but if they are in the 25.00 range, thats about as good as it gets.
These are not hard to work on. Just cut the handle pins off with a stone in a dremel, the scales will come off, they have no epoxy behind them. Now you have a pattern for your new handles. If you want to file work the lock bar, just drive out the center pin. This is the only thing holding the lock bar in place, be careful as there is a small leaf spring in there, just dont loose that. Once you take one apart you will see how simple they are. I use soft solder the put the new scales on. be VERY careful and dont let this get into the lock bar, or it is a real mess. just use the heat and draw the solder where it needs to be. A little file work and polish, your ready to engrave. Holler if I can help.

_________________
May God Bless you, as He has me
Mike Pardue
www.parduesilversmith.com

I like that engraving a lot. Especilly the no backbone. I agree with haraga, some liner cuts would really finish it off.
Jim

I Like the you did the no back bone to, I like the understated look...

_________________
The winds of heaven blow between a horse's ears
Black Mountain Bits and Spurs & Big Game Hounds