Pair of Roosters Dressed Up In Stag

[herbva]

This Frank Buster fight'n rooster is another one of the group of knives with outgassing cell that I got earlier this year. And, I'm continuing to experiment with the batch of sambar stag I recently acquired. I was worried that the outgassing might have fatally damaged the liners, but fortunately, this knife was made with extra thick liners. I guess it was made that way to go with the super thick primary blade. I found two really gnarly slabs that I wasn't sure I could do anything with, but a little extra work and think this knife has some extra character now. I know, fat stag isn't for everyone. Each of the blades has some residual pitting from the outgassing cell, but I don't think its too bad.

[Beavertail]

Beautiful stag!!

[1967redrider]

Excellent work, Herb!

I think I found both of your knives in Frank's book.

[Reverand]

Great job on those, Herb!
Those don't look ridiculously fat, just enough for a good grip!
That newer Germain celluloid is terribly unstable, and has ruined a lot of good knives. I am glad to see you rescue these!

[doglegg]

Yes Sir!!!

[glennbad]

Stagalicious!

[Nev52]

Very nice. Excellent job

Nev

[cody6268]

Awesome job!

I've been thinking about buying a couple that has outgassed (but not to the point resulting in severe blades or frame) just to get fixed up into a user with some better handle material. German cell is awful. Ruined a quite nice Buck Creek I had. It will be sent off to be rescaled in stag when funds allow.

With a knife I bought, a seller threw in some poorly matched pieces of stag suitable for a Medium Stockman-size knife (one was quite thick and gnarly, the other quite thin and much less gnarly). I know stag is expensive, but I think it's a bit of a waste of money paying someone to put them on a knife. I'll use them to practice working with the stag. Have a nasty-looking early Imperial Cub Scout Knife I got in last year's POS exchange I've been meaning to rehab.

[herbva]

Awesome job!

I've been thinking about buying a couple that has outgassed (but not to the point resulting in severe blades or frame) just to get fixed up into a user with some better handle material. German cell is awful. Ruined a quite nice Buck Creek I had. It will be sent off to be rescaled in stag when funds allow.

With a knife I bought, a seller threw in some poorly matched pieces of stag suitable for a Medium Stockman-size knife (one was quite thick and gnarly, the other quite thin and much less gnarly). I know stag is expensive, but I think it's a bit of a waste of money paying someone to put them on a knife. I'll use them to practice working with the stag. Have a nasty-looking early Imperial Cub Scout Knife I got in last year's POS exchange I've been meaning to rehab.

Thanks for the kind words Cody. For a long time I've been wanting to start working with stag, but I think the high cost of primo, "book" matched stag slabs kept me from doing it. Then I discovered that Culpepper periodically sells their stag seconds, culls and returns in large batches. I know it seems like a big investment, but if you work out the cost per knife, even if only half of the slabs work out being usable, it lowers the cost dramatically. I also happen to have a lot of knives that I bought from a very nice and kind gentleman in a large collection, and fortunately for me, he asked if I also wanted a batch of celluloid scale ones that were starting to outgas, and he even went to the trouble of prying off the celluloid before putting these knives all in a sealed plastic bag. I just checked on the bay, and there is at least one batch of stag, like the one I got, up for sale now. (I bought about 5 lbs, and this one is smaller, just a little over 2 lbs.) I know they look pretty bad, but you should have seen the pieces I used for the fight'n rooster knife, and the other 2 I posted recently. It's a bit like working with bone. Once you get the pieces trimmed to fit and sanded down, there's this magic transformation. I've also picked up a couple of different colors of Fiebing's leather dye which works quite well on stag. Good luck with your rehab projects. I look forward to seeing a post! Here's the link to that auction: https://www.ebay.com/itm/125108432575?h ... Swi9hh6Dr8

[Meridian_Mike]

Nice job Herb!

That stag is killer!