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I've recently discovered some really cool products and sellers on Facebook and have purchased exquisite burl scale material, custom 1911 gun grips, various suedes and leathers, and even a few unusual knives. What you see below are two of the latter, from Miguel "Barbado" (The Beard) Gil in Spain. We communicate back and forth with Google translate, or at least enough so to do business. Miguel is a super nice guy who loves to cook and make stunning folding knives in what he calls a very traditional Spanish pattern and from top of the line quality materials. It takes about 2-3 months to get a knife, because he does everything by hand. His blades are exquisitely polished and wickedly sharp. He told me that the quality of his scale material depends on whatever he is able to buy from the bull ring the day after the fight. After I had ordered the first knife (in generic format) he posted a picture of the one you see (bottom). I asked if he had any more of that material and as it turned out, it was already the knife that he was making for me. Later he posted the second knife (top one) and I bought that. The slogan, "Viva mi dueno" is literally "Live my own". In English this might be rendered as "Doing it my way" or "Doing my own thing".
The Brazilian handled knife has brass liners and a titanium fulcrum in the shape of a guitar. The white knife is G10 with titanium liners and a titanium guitar.
The knives are about 7-1/2" (19 cm) long and about 5/8" wide (1.5 cm) at the widest place, the hinge of the fulcrum. The blade is about 3" (8 cm) of sharpened length. The horn knife is 3 oz (82 g) and the white is 2.5 oz (69 g). They are thus very comfortable in the pocket and Miguel intends for them to be used for many years. Mine will be carefully preserved and never used. (Any ideas on how to fix that scale?)
The back marking of "14c28m" refers to a high quality European tool steel and España is, of course, Spain. All these markings look like hand-engraving to me. Miguel really goes in for detail.
It makes me ill every time I look at what I did to those beautiful scales. I've exchanged an email or two with Miguel and plan to forward him this article. I've also incorporated the locking mechanism into a switchblade design. He informs me that the sale and manufacture of switchblades is strictly illegal in Spain, so he has no interest in pursuing that.
The fulcrum is guitar shaped. Hey, Eric, don't you need one of these?
The notch in the blade is reminiscent of a traditional lockback knife, but it operates a little differently. The part of the tang between the notch and the pivot acts like a lockpin in a traditional picklock.
The locktab part of the spine has a long rectangular slot rather than a round or square hole. In part, this allows the tang to rotate without interference from the spine. In these two, it's very stiff, but it could be eased up considerably for a switchblade. The design of the locktab at the very tip of the handle serves two functions. First there are long ears on either side that allow the guitar to be formed into a hinge. Secondly, the square portion at the end of the slot is the lug that drops down into the blade notch to lock it open. This is pretty ingenious to me.
The guitar at rest is under tension holding it down against the back of the spine and neatly stowed. I don't think that it needs to be titanium, but perhaps this is easier than steel which would need to be tempered. As the fulcrum lifts away from the spine the bottom of the guitar presses against the back of the blade, not only lifting the locktab, but also forcing the blade in the direction it needs to go to close the knife.
Thanks for letting me share. What do you think of these?
