All About Pocket Knives

I restored and customized a few Barlows before the Oregon (OKCA) show in April. Always overly ambitious I started projects than I could finish. I finished this New Holland Barlow, made by Kutmaster, this week after I got out of the hospital for hernia surgery. I have a 15 pound limit on my lifting for the next six weeks, so I won’t be doing much everywhere but a chance to spend a little time in the shop.

I think one of things I like so much about Barlows are all the different bolsters with brand name stamped into them. And a sheath lthough I don't think of the Kutmaster Barlow as being a "classic Barlow" nevertheless I like the deep New Holland stamp in the bolster. Maybe that's because we had some New Holland hay equipment on the ranch I grew up.

As you can see this Barlow has pretty full blades, the master blade is near mint, although there is some spotting on the spine of both blades. There is also some spotting on the bolsters. One thing I noticed was the outside liners were brass but the center liner was steel. I call this work a customization as opposed to a restoration because there wasn’t a lot wrong but needed to be repaired.

I disassembled the whole knife, cleaned and polished it inside and out and replace the plastic handles with sambar stag handles. The plastic handles had a tab that fit under a slot in the bolster so that it was held secure at the bolster by leverage. The stag handles I have had did not have that tab on it so I drilled the liners and installed a front pin to secure the front of the liners. Of course I used epoxy to hold the handles to the liners and to seal the back of the stag to prevent moisture damage to the stag as well as the liner.

For anyone interested, the knife is currently listed in my AAPK store and there are more pictures there.

Thanks for looking and as always I appreciate your feedback.
Dale

Good work Dale. Looks clean and smooth. Love the bone.

Great looking stag...It's a great looking barlow

That is a well dressed Barlow. Great job Dale.

Can't go wrong with stag. Another beauty, Dale!

Thanks guys, I appreciate the kudos, but the real credit goes to He who made such magnificent stag to put on the handles.
Stag as such an interesting and different material to work with it, (different than synthetic materials like plastics). There are so many ways you can treat stag and have it come out entirely different. Other interesting thing is that you never quite know what you have until you're finished. Bone is like that too, but plastics are far less interesting to me because they don't have the variety of different looks you can get natural materials like stag and bone, at least not at the artisan level.

Very nice Dale!!