I have finally gotten around to starting on a project that has been sitting on the back burner for many years.
I have a fairly extensive parts box. You could also say it is more of a mass grave filled with the bones of SAKs long since deceased.
I went through it somewhere between 5 and 10 years back and picked out all the single ended Wenger backsprings and all the 84mm Victorinox blades. I figured that with a little bit of cutting and a little bit of grinding and a lot of fiddling I could make these work together and after making some custom liners to get the pivot pin in the right location I could assemble a single blade pocket knife with almost free choice of scale shape and material.
Digging around other dark corners of my workshop I found some brass sheet of a suitable thickness, some brass rod for pins and a selection of scale material.
There is quite an element of organic individuality in each of these first three knives to emerge from the back end of this process, mainly due to the largely freehand/freeform methods employed. But I'm fine with that as I'm treating these more as art pieces or "man jewellery" rather than "perfect walk and talk" pocket knives... I have plenty of stock Victorinox SAKs if that's what I want. These are the product of sitting down with raw(ish) materials and hand tools and seeing what appears at the end of the day, then doing it all again the next day and seeing what differences emerge.
You could call it the Bob Ross approach to knifemaking... no mistakes, just happy little accidents resolving themselves into something unique each time. I have three or four more sets of blade and spring so there are other variations to follow, also a couple of saws and springs so there may be a single tool "pocket saw" or two emerge from the shavings and swarf as well.
Anyway, here's a few pic's so you can see what I'm rambling on about. The first one has a relatively modern Vic blade with spine and backspring both featuring filework, brass liners and horn scales. The other two have vintage VICTORIA blades (one in quite good condition and one that has had a long and productive life), brass liners and oil finished wood scales.
more pics in comments
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