- Joined
- Jun 6, 2010
- Messages
- 184
Please note this is a re-post.
Intro
Last June I had the amazing luck of getting my very first custom knife directly from a knifemaker who's work I'd been admiring for some time. That knifemaker is none other than Allen Elishewitz and the knife was none other than this striking Saboteur...
click-the-pics for hi-res goodness
I did a detailed writeup on the saboteur and would recommend you have a read, but here are the stats as well as an excerpt from the concluding remarks:
"...functional Art. That's how I would sum up Allen Elishewitz' Saboteur. It's also my idea of the perfect knife - one that looks like it belongs in a modern-arts museum but is designed to cut-hack-slash-slice-pierce-clock-the-sh**-out-of something..."
Action: Right-hand Thumb-Stud
Length: Overall 21.5cm (8.45") / Closed: 11.5cm (4.5")
Weight: 200g (7.1oz)
Blade Type: double-ground Tanto, satin flats, stone-washed grinds
Length: 9.5cm (3.75")
Thickness: ~3.5mm (1.38")
Material: 154CM Stainless steel
Frame: Chad Nichols Iguana-patterned Damascus bolsters,
Carbon Fiber scales, beefy Ti liners & spacers (5)
Pocket Clip: Hollowed bead-blast stainless steel (tip-up)
The grand Plan
I don't think I had the Saboteur in my hands for more than 24 hours when I decided this was "the" knife and as such, I simply had to have a backup, just in case... . So I toyed with the idea for a while and thought to myself if I'm going to go for another Saboteur, wouldn't it be really cool if I could perhaps get one in a specific combination of materials of my choosing. Now that would be my idea of custom. But hey, this is Allen Elishewitz and I'm, well, just a nice guy and that's about it... . Never the less, I got up the courage to ask him using a by the way... and in a friendly but frank manner he turned me down, having already too much on his plate... . Well that was understandable, after all, Allen's constantly involved in collaboration projects, in special runs for major dealers, not to mention heading Hogue's venture into the sporting-cutlery field.
The next best thing
There was little time for me to lament as Allen had us all too excited with his next venture (aka WIP), the Tank 3.0 After having done some research on the earlier Tank versions and having had seen my friend's classic Tanks, it was clear to me that I had to score one. Hell, the Tank is easily just as awesome as the Saboteur and I would have a backup Elishewitz, if not a Sabo. As luck again would have it, I not only managed to get one of the WIP Tank 3.0s but one that literally was the counterpart to my Sabo...
Never give up
Well there I was, this time, with the Saboteur in one hand and the Tank in the other, happy as can be... . That is until Allen "the machine" Elishewitz started churning out such amazing combinations of materials for his newer lineup, namely the Tank 3.0, the Jekyll and Hyde... . So I thought to myself, man, wouldn't that MokuTi look damn fine on a Saboteur... especially with that damascus pattern... and that thought suddenly found itself buried in a PM to Allen about other topic(s)... . To my amazement, I got a "what exactly did you have in mind" back!!! So I scrounged the 'Net for like a week, looking for pretty much every folder Allen had made in the past 18mths and then I did some mockups, actually many mockups, until I settled on this final draft...
Good things take time
Of course, shortly after I sent Allen my mockup, the next WIP sprung up... and the next and the next. I mean there's a reason why his nick is "the machine"... the man is unstoppable! At the same time, I wasn't making things any easier as I kept making new suggestions... one after the other. lol, I'm still amazed to this day that Allen took the time from his ridiculously busy schedule to answer me; my guess is many a knifemaker would have just given up. So between the two of us, the days, weeks and months just kept slipping by... Then came the new year and Allen's resolutions; "to say no" and "to be the best of me". Allen had taken on so many projects in 2011 that he had no time for anything else. As much as I could understand him, I knew that it could very well mean the end of my dream Saboteur...
...boy, was I wrong, Allen isn't one to back down and despite having to come up with 11 folders for Wilson Tactical, prep knives for Hogue's appearance at this year's Shot show, the man still managed to pull that proverbial rabbit out of a hat and this is what that rabbit looks like... :triumphant:
Saboteur Numéro deux
Chad Nichols' Raindrop Mokuti in purple & silver, Chad's blackout damascus, Black Site's broad-weave carbon fiber and Allen's supreme grinds... talk about having nailed it! Those were the materials, patterns and colors I had hoped for and received, but the excitement doesn't stop there! If you know Allen and his work, you'll know that he is always looking to challenge himself and to constantly "change things around". Some of these changes are aesthetic in nature, like the new look of the polished liners found on this Saboteur. Other changes are actual refinements accumulated from Allen's WIPs and constant innovations, like the subtle changes to the Saboteur's grind and edge (see comparison images below).
Conclusion
This has been without a doubt, an incredible experience, having had the opportunity to share my ideas of the ultimate folder with a top member of the custom cutlery scene and then seeing those ideas become reality. Allen, I've said it before and I'm gonna say it again, you the man! Despite the year's workload and despite my barrage of requests, you and Valérie, aka Team Elishewitz did it again!!!
:encouragement:
Sidebar: As if this wasn't cool enough, how about having the chance to watch one of your favorite knifemakers make a folder just like yours? Yes sir, Allen put together a few tutorial DVDs with Chris Crawford Knives! I have the Advanced Tactical Folders DVD and I can highly recommend it for even "enthusiastic" users and collectors (like myself) who have no intention of getting into the business. You will appreciate the Elishewitz folder you have in your hands all the more when you see what steps and actual effort go into making a modern-day folder!
What a trio...
stonewashed vs. polished liners, brass vs. Tefon washers...
They're Saboteurs, but it looks more like a "Tank" to me...
Saboteur No1 vs. Saboteur No2...
Tank 3.0 vs. Saboteur No2...
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