Ironic
Platinum Member
- Joined
- Jan 1, 2011
- Messages
- 484
From Paul Baleta, this custom Pondoro hunter has a bit longer blade than his standard Pondoro model, in Magnacut @ 62.5-63 HRC with mortised sheep horn scales, bronze furniture and one of his exquisite handmade leather sheaths.
Thanks to his tireless commitment to customer satisfaction, ordering a custom blade from Paul was a thoroughly enjoyable experience. As an example, I told him I was picturing sheep horn handles for this knife, but that living in the New Mexico desert I was concerned about shrinkage/movement of anything natural, especially sheep horn, since it would have to make an extreme climate transition coming to me from his shop in Austria. In one of the photos below you’ll see how he secured the scales with nine blind pins and four through-pins, plus a mosaic pin forward and a lanyard tube aft—15 anchor points in all. It’s been almost ten months since I received the knife, and there is not one gap or flaw anywhere—so impressive. I can’t overemphasize how happy I am with the whole package.
Enjoy…
Under bright light, the translucency of the horn lets some of the blind pins shine through:
Internal handle construction showing all 15 anchor points:
More images in next post…
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