How would you proceed - Schrade USA

[dust_101]

Folks,

Many years back I was privy to a sale of some 'unfinished' knives from Schrade USA before the buyout/sale to China. I still have 2 of them, one Deerslayer and one Ducks Unlimited Sharpfinger. They are hardened, with finish, just no blade or handle materials.

I was always planning to get them finished in some manner, that or just trade them off for something (eventually), but I have zero experience in finishing a knife. I have kept a wary eye out to look for a set of original Delrin handles or anything of that type, but to no avail.

So, curious to know what THR would do. I'm a fair hand with tools, can work on most any car (just finished a timing belt on an EJ25 subie) but I don't want to mess up these 2 items since they are USA made and not easy to come by anymore.

 

[bikerdoc]

Two thoughts

Sell them in the trading post.

Practice finishing on a cheap blades untii you are confident to tackle the Schrades.

 

[hso]

Check with Smokey Mountain Knife Works for parts for them since you are not likely to find parts floating around (or buy beaters off of ebay for parts). They're not difficult to assemble, but they'll never be factory Schrades or worth what those are worth NIB.

Considering how easy the Sharp Finger and Deer Slayer is to finish out, you could just do it yourself. Trace a knife out on masonite, cut the blank, work scale material on the masonite blank, transfer to the knife and attach with Corby bolts. Look at what others have done!

Easier still-

Pick some very nice materials you'd like them to be finished up in and ask RC and others here if they'd take some "dead presidents" to do the work completing them for you.

 

[ApacheCoTodd]

"...hardened with finish..."?

And "...no blade..." on a fixed blade design - what's that about?

Are they "shaped/profiled" blanks unsharpened?

Not sniping, just very curious.

 

[dust_101]

Apologies, needed more coffee this morning (kid #2 showing up in less than a month)

'no blade' meaning no finished edge.

I tested both blades at the handle area so the testing dent wouldn't be viewable and they were not soft, this was many years ago but I checked online for the usual hardness test results, and these matched up.

The finish is reflective, so it doesn't look like bare metal, just looks like the typical finished product from Schrade, something like this:

(Link goes outside THR)
http://i438.photobucket.com/albums/qq109/festerfromnzed/easter12584.jpg

I'll snap a pic of them when I return home, just to give you a better idea of what I would be working with.