Page 15 - Blade (January 2019)

and finished handles, guards or buttcaps
with sharp edges, bad edge geometry that
might cause the blade to dull quicker and

be difficult to remove from the sheath,

and so on.
Britton’s take was interesting, to say
the least.
“One of my first knives was made in
1972. It was ugly and poorly finished,”
he recalls. “[BLADE Magazine Cut-
lery Hall-Of-Fame® member] Frank
Centofante helped me sell the knife to
a hunting guide from Montana. The
guide later wrote to me wanting four
more just like it. The knife skinned Mark Bartlett gets the bolster of case-
hardened mild steel and gold-anodized
and dressed three elk before needing
titanium spacers to meld seamlessly with
sharpening. Steel was Latrobe D2 and the curly koa handle of his fi xed fi ghter.
Paul Bos did the heat treat. Fit and
finish had little or nothing to do with
function. Quality of steel, heat treat,
grind and sharpening angle were much
more relevant.” there are makers that don’t worry about For example, a knife with an off -centered

“A good finished knife just has a better those details. Most makers say a knife blade will still function as well as one that
feel, but a lot of people will not use it,” is meant to be used, not to sit in a safe.” is centered—but the customer has the

Delavan notes. “A knife with a lot of Ostroff tends to agree. “Performance is right to get what he or she wants, so we do
cosmetic issues can still be a good tool, and not typically an issue [with fit and fi nish]. whatever it takes to make them happy.”

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JANUARY 2019 blademag.com 15