My friend Ricky Wallace is a longtime knife maker that lives and works a hundred or so miles west of me here in Northwest Florida. Ricky’s a US Army Veteran, fishing guru, boat overhauler, and a genuine nice guy with a knack for fixing pretty much anything that breaks. If he can’t fix it, hell, he’ll just make one. The late Lewis Grizzard would call him a Great American. So would I. He’s also a photogenic feller, with a busy channel on YouTube. Ricky makes leather sheaths for all the knives he creates, and he’s been a great help to me in my knife making pursuits. I sent Ricky the first of my leather knives to actually leave my place and head out into the great beyond. He turned around and did the following video. Thank you, Ricky, and thank you for your service, Sir.
Staying busy around here and looking forward to cooler weather. I took on a new “hobby” back in April, and started making a few leather knives. I’ve always been fascinated by the tools of the leather trade, whether it’s stamping tools or the knives we use for cutting. The round knife in the photos is the latest one from my knife shop, and it’s the first one I’m making available for sale. I won’t be making many–for a couple of reasons. The first being that I need to juggle my knifemaking projects with my leather projects. The second is the fact that I’m probably the slowest knife maker in existence.
I won’t be accepting advance orders, but I will be offering products here and there as they are completed. Comments and questions are always welcome, and feel free to reach out by email to BruceGibson@aol.com.
Wikipedia says Buck Knives were founded in my old hometown of Mountain Home, Idaho, back in 1902. They also give credit to San Diego, California. Rewriting, or completely eliminating history is the flavor of the week in what’s left of America, so I choose to stick with the Idaho origination story. It’s my Blog.
Several weeks ago, my friend Gerry at Dakota Defense announced on Facebook that he had a few Buck 112 Ranger Autos available, and I got one. It arrived in record time, which is one of Gerry’s trademark moves–you order, he ships. No playing around. I was blown away by my new knife–my first Buck, and my first lock blade. I was so impressed with this Buck 112 that a few days later I ordered one of the classic Buck 110’s. Then, I got to thinking–rarely a good thing, but I got to thinking as a holster-maker, why not make a sheath? I’m left-handed, I have thousands of dollars worth of equipment, hard-won experience making gunleather, stress, blood loss, pain, scars, etc. Hell, I can make a knife sheath. It’ll be easy! One week later, after a half-dozen or so failed attempts, sure enough, I had one. But wait, there’s more.
Since I’m happy with the plain, left-handed, beautifully conformed to me leather Buck 112 sheath I have painstakingly created for myself…why not make a few more? As a holster-maker, pain, frustration and expense are my stock in trade. What could it hurt?
To wrap things up, I managed to finish a couple I’m happy with. Both for the Buck 112. Both for you majority right-handers. One is a hammer stamp design I adopted after seeing a holster that Mike Barranti built. The other is a simple basket stamp. Both are made from premium Hermann Oak leather, and lightly antiqued in mahogany. The borders on both of these are a little half-flower Barry King stamp that I’m partial to. Neither one’s on the website yet, but I’ll try and put them both up some time today.These are both in the Shop now. Just click the link up top.
Thanks for reading. Happy Tuesday–I hope you’re having a great week.
