Aalb

[Warren Polensky]

Here's a scan of an All American Lockback I completed a few days ago:



I used bamboo for the scales and hid all the pins. The bolsters are satin finished with 600 grit wet or dry paper. The final product is a nice everyday carry knife; it's small and light, plenty sharp, and pretty attractive. But my craftsmanship will have to improve some before I start presenting these things to others.

I had problems peining the pins without bending them and epoxying the scales to the sides without getting epoxy into the lock parts. The only performance issues are a little blade wobble and while the blade swings freely if the lock is fully depressed, the blade grates against the lock bar if the lock isn't depressed while opening or closing the knife. I've got another of these kits to see how much I learned from this one.

Warren

[tscreener1234]

nicer than my first one, which is posted on the newbie forum, had a problem getting the wood finished how I wanted and had the same problems with the pins. I am going to epoxy my pins into the handle material on my next one and just peen the the blade pin, should look good( hopefully)

[jace11229]

Hey Warren,
That looks really nice. Well done. How was the bamboo to work with?
Thanks, Jace

[Warren Polensky]

Jace, the bamboo works pretty much like wood. I used material from a laminated bamboo cutting board ($6 for the smallest one at the local big box kitchen store).

Bamboo is usually a light honey color, until it's heated -- and then it turns a medium brown. If you use the lighter color, you need to be careful about keeping it clean, just as with other light-colored materials.

Cheers,
Warren