All About Pocket Knives

Here is quite a nice older knife, Schrade Cut Co., 4 1/4", 2 blade Equal End Jack with full blades, excellent snaps and most attractive peach seed bone handles. The back handle is missing a piece of bone.
It is a very collectible pattern and except for back handle, is in very good condition.
What is the best thing to do with this knife ?
If someone has SCC jigged bone handle slab of this size and successfully installs it, does it change the knife's value ? i.e. now it will have been worked on ?
Or, are some collectors accepting of knives with correct handle replacement on back side ?
Of course if a correct handle was installed blades could be sharpened for a special EDC knife, a treat for a collector to carry & use.
I would like to hear your thoughts on this knife and suggestions as to who might have the correct handle piece (peach seed bone ~ 3 1/8" x 7/8").
kj

A correct replacement would be a long shot. If it was mine I would send it to Olde Cutler in Sioux Falls for a patch, and I would put it into my pocket.

As said finding the correct handle material and getting it repaired would be a long shot. In my opinion a good repair would ad value to the knife but depending on the cost it might be prohibitive. It would be a repaired knife and should be represented as such. Repair work is always a matter of what the specific collector finds acceptable. If it were my knife I would epoxy patch it and try to get it as presentable as possible.

Either way -replaced scale or a patch job, it will forever be a repaired knife. Even if you do somehow manage to find the exact matching scale from a "donor" knife, and do a an absolutely perfect transplant job with none of the little clues indicating that some work been done, it should be presented as a repaired knife. Judging from your picture, if that was my knife, I would patch it in a heartbeat. I have many patched knives in my collection and I actually like working with epoxy. The thing I like most about working with epoxy is - if you don't like the way the patch comes out, it takes only a few seconds to heat it up, remove it and try again.

The bone on that is beautiful and original. I'd rather have it patched and preserved, IMHO.

I had PM'd KJ and offered to repair this knife but with shipping costs to and from Canada it proved a bit too pricey. KJ was kind enough to sell and send me the knife and I had promised to post the repaired knife when the handle patching was completed. I do like these big 4 1/4" closed length cigar jacks.

For me patching can be a process that involves many steps to get to what I consider a decent repair. It is never a quick one and done process. Sometimes I have to remove the patch entirely and start over from scratch if things don't go well. In hindsight I could have done a better job of matching the jigging on this old Schrade but I was reluctant to start over since the color match turned out as well as it did. I have included a before and after picture.

GOOD GOLLY..... that looks GREAT!!



You did a beautiful job!
AGAIN.... WOW!!!!

Impressive, Wayne!

Remarkable buddy. That looks fantastic.

btrwtr wrote: ↑Wed Feb 05, 2020 1:11 pm I had PM'd KJ and offered to repair this knife but with shipping costs to and from Canada it proved a bit too pricey. KJ was kind enough to sell and send me the knife and I had promised to post the repaired knife when the handle patching was completed. I do like these big 4 1/4" closed length cigar jacks.

For me patching can be a process that involves many steps to get to what I consider a decent repair. It is never a quick one and done process. Sometimes I have to remove the patch entirely and start over from scratch if things don't go well. In hindsight I could have done a better job of matching the jigging on this old Schrade but I was reluctant to start over since the color match turned out as well as it did. I have included a before and after picture.

What do you use for color matching?

Wow ! Amazingly exact color and jigging as well. I had no idea that a handle restoration could look so perfect. The knife thanks you Wayne. It feels whole again.
kj

If not for the before pic, I wouldn't have thought repair on the second pic. Excellent.

If I didn't know it was a patch, I may have been hard-pressed to see the repair!

Awesome!

Yes, it is an excellent repair job. When people look at a knife and you tell them you have patched the broken bone and they say "where is the patch" then you have done good.

edge213 wrote: ↑Wed Feb 05, 2020 3:18 pm

btrwtr wrote: ↑Wed Feb 05, 2020 1:11 pm I had PM'd KJ and offered to repair this knife but with shipping costs to and from Canada it proved a bit too pricey. KJ was kind enough to sell and send me the knife and I had promised to post the repaired knife when the handle patching was completed. I do like these big 4 1/4" closed length cigar jacks.

For me patching can be a process that involves many steps to get to what I consider a decent repair. It is never a quick one and done process. Sometimes I have to remove the patch entirely and start over from scratch if things don't go well. In hindsight I could have done a better job of matching the jigging on this old Schrade but I was reluctant to start over since the color match turned out as well as it did. I have included a before and after picture.

What do you use for color matching?

It depends on the handle I'm trying to match. I normally start by adding some fine wood particles from filing and ad that to the epoxy as I mix it. I also used some brown leather dye on this particular knife. It actually looks better in hand. The small picture (before enlarging) as I look at it on my PC screen is the same size as the knife.

He repaired this one too, which had a chunk of bone out of it.

Wayne is the master!!!

That is great work! Even the jigging looks original to the knife. If I may ask, what kind of epoxy do you use? I've found that the hardware store variety doesn't polish up very well.