All About Pocket Knives

This Ka-Bar Gunboat popped up on my eBay Ka-Bar search tonight and I made an impulse buy. It is going to be a bit of project with its condition woes such as the corrosion and blade chips, but looks like a decent knife for $29. It will join my Ka-Bar / Union gunboat fleet as the first jigged bone. This will probably go into my EDC group unless it looks better in person than I expect or I get comments that I did throw away my $29 on a worthless knife.

PS: I'm impressed with the clarity of the seller's pictures.

My own completely unscientific, bottom-feeding rule is that *any* made in the USA, bone handled, old knife that is not broken, not worn to a nub, not a franken-knife and has decent walk & talk is probably worth at least $30. So, if I can pay less than $30, I figure I got a reasonably good deal. The farther I can get under $30, the better the condition & the more obscure the brand, the better the deal.

Of course, this theory is also why I now have a pile of beat-up old knives that are worthless to everyone except me...

Looks like a decent knife at 10X the price!

I like it Jerry. A little work on it and it'll look pretty good. I have never had one with the nick on the blade, the other ones are beautiful knives. I bought an ivory handle one a couple weeks ago in really good shape, but the maker is worn off for twenty dollars. I have thought about posting it just to see if someone might know the maker from looking at it? I think you did fine for the twenty nine dollars.

That'll clean up nice!
That is some gorgeous bone!!!!

Jerry,you did quite well!

You did good. The greater part of collecting knives is cleaning and sharpening
an old knife.

Bob

Jerry, Hope you was joking about the condition of that old knife, it is a great old knife.

Harold

I think you got a beaut there. How far you going to go cleaning it up? I think I'd do a minimal amount. Lots of character there.

Jerry is you think $29 is too much then I'm going to follow you around and pick up your rejects.

All, thanks for commenting. I am pretty happy to pick up this knife .

With regard to how much cleaning... I will definitely use metal polish and a soft cloth on the metal parts (blades, bolsters, back spring) and a soft toothbrush and some oil on the handles to remove the surface crud. I won't use abrasives (sandpaper) or machinery (buffer) to clean.

Not sure how I might tackle the chips in blade edge until I get the knife in hand.

Here is a before and after example of a Case XX 6165 that I cleaned up after I got it. The Ka-Bar gunboat is a bit more neglected than the Case was. I believe the 6165 was improved by my efforts. I realize others may have a different point of view and that's ok.

For $29, you practically stole it. The only time I can honestly say I threw away $29 was when I got an Emerson CQC-7 Mini-B in well worn shape that I suspect is fake (need to take it to the local knife store, an Emerson dealer to confirm).

I bet the 65 wasn't $29

Harold

Jerry, with the price of entertainment at the movies or a sporting event being what it is nowadays, you'll get $29 worth of entertainment and pleasure out if that knife, regardless how it turns out!

Ken

Great catch Jerry. You’ll get no bias from me. Look at the last two farmers jacks I posted and was tickled to get.

Great catch Jerry. You’ll get no bias from me. Look at the last two farmers jacks I posted and was tickled to get.

stockman wrote:I bet the 65 wasn't $29

Harold, you would win that bet (lol).

I received the Ka-Bar jigged bone Gunboat today. The pictures in this post are my pictures. The original pictures were the seller's. The knife in-hand is actually better than how I interpreted the seller's pictures. Where there is damage/chipping to a blade edge it is very minor. The blades mostly have patina with some occasional shallow pitting. In places absent of patina the original blade finish is visible. The walk and talk of the blades is good and I believe some oil will make even better. The spey has a half-stop.

As I mentioned earlier I do intend to use some oil, a toothbrush, and some metal polish to remove any surface crud. Blue Wenol is the metal polish I prefer. It is very mild and doesn't seem to have too much Ammonia in it.

I'll post some after pictures if there is interest.

Looking forward to the finished product.

Jerry that looks to be in pretty good shape. I can't wait to see your results!

Here are before and after pictures. I spent about 15 minutes with some Blue Wenol polish and about 30 minutes messing around with picture cropping and merging. The pictures will download slowly due to their size caused by multiple images merged together. My patience, aptitude, competence, and desire for performing this activity are all lacking (except the picture part .

Removing the layer of grime on the blades exposed the micro pitting to be worse than my original assessment.

Jerry,that ain't a bad knife. I like how thin the bone is on it.

I'm gonna say that's a steal for $29!

Jerry, it turned out really nice. Nice shield.

Harold