I had a couple Schrade Barlows in my shop that needed combining to make one good knife. The blades had quite a bit of light pitting on them, but deeper than I could polish out. I used a new treatment on the blades that I learned from Wayne Goddard at the OKCA show in April. I think he called it "Goddard's Mustard Plaster," it is also described in his book, "The World of Knifemaking."
The mustard treatment, if done properly forms a hard oxide layer on carbon steel that protects the blades from normal finger printing and from pitting due to spittle.
I had to go lightly with the mustard where I etched the blade.
I put rope filework on the pitted backsprings. Instead of grinding it off smooth before filing, I left it as part of the filework trying to achieve an aged look to the knife.
The handles are Impala jigged caramel colored bone from Culpeppers.
I do have a problem in this picture that has since been corrected. The deep jigging of this pattern along with the placement of the pivot pin left a sharp edge around the pin and a funky head on the pin. It has problem been rectified but I have not gotten a new picture. I will try and add it tomorrow.
With the worn look of the design on the bolsters and some light pitting on the back springs and blades, there was no way to hide the age & wear on the knife, so I incorporated it into the look of the knife.
I will leave it up to you to decide whether I succeeded in getting the old worn knife look I was going for. You be the judge.
