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S P O R T I N G C L A S S I C S 7 8 If you love wood, there are countless varieties to choose from, but keep in mind that all materials represent some kind of compromise. There are woods from Australia and Africa and South America that run right off the scale of the Janka test, but that doesn't necessarily make them a good or practical choice for knifemaking. The Janka test, incidentally, classifies the relative hardness of different woods, and hardness itself is not necessarily a desirable thing. It can make a wood extremely resistant to wear, but too hard to be worked with any practicality or too brittle to stand up to sudden impact— such as when you drop your knife. At the other end are the woods too soft to be useful for much of anything requiring durability; think balsa or white pine) If you have a preference and know exactly what you want, fine, well, and good. But if you have any doubts at all, consult with Dave. He has about a three- to four-month waiting period, varying with the seasons, but whether it's a ranch knife, hunting knife, kitchen knife, custom steak–knife set, Bowie, fighter, skiving knife, or anything else your heart desires, he can make it for you. Note: Contact Dave at Horsewright Clothing and Tack (661-822-4941; info@horsewrightclothing.com). mother of pearl, or—before it gets banned—fossilized mammoth ivory. Why, I hear you cry, would the Federal government ban the fossilized ivory of an extinct animal in order to help preserve African elephants, which are actually abundant enough to require culling in virtually every African game park? Because according to the Feds, it's too difficult to tell modern ivory from fossilized mammoth ivory. Dave Ferry's comment: "If they can't tell those two things apart, they're in the wrong business," a sentiment that could be applied to other federal agencies as well. But the material Dave prefers over all others is wood, particularly the exotic woods. Wood is plentiful, readily available, relatively easy to work, durable, stable, and beautiful. T he shape of the handle should be based on your hand size and your intended use of that particular knife. Just as pistol grips should be modified to suit the man holding the gun, so too the handle-size and shape of a knife should be selected with care. A petite lady can certainly get the job done using a knife designed for Shaquille O'Neal, but her work will be made a lot easier if the handle fits her hand. The choice of knife-handle material, according to Bob Loveless' criteria, is an equally subjective thing, and tastes run from synthetic to traditional sambar stag to various kinds of sheep horn to exotic materials such as camel bone or precious mammoth ivory to a bewildering array of woods. It would be easy to recommend some synthetic handle material that is almost hese Dave Ferry knives feature blades of AEB-L stainless, which has a Rockwell hardness of 62. The white handle of this knife is elk horn, which is enhanced by a spacer fashioned of yellow mammoth tooth and Loveless bolts. Bottom: This handle is exhibition- grade Turkish walnut from Butch Searcy, a renowned custom riflemaker. T impervious to anything short of a thermo-nuclear blast, and if you use a knife hard all day long every day as part of your livelihood, that might be a good choice. But for most of us, the aesthetics of the handle are as important as the practical aspects, and those two factors must be balanced. The advantages synthetics offer in toughness are counter-balanced by their lack of tactile warmth, their lack—if you will—of soul. Having said that, some natural materials are better than others. Ivory is a good example of a bad material. Apart from being illegal these days, it's one of the most beautiful substances on earth, but it's actually a poor choice for any kind of working tool, being both easy to break and susceptible to drying and cracking. Some better natural materials include camel, giraffe, or buffalo bone; sheep horn or staghorn; jigged bone (think cattle shin); some of the more exotic and difficult-to-obtain materials such as hippo ivory, water buffalo, fossilized walrus ivory, fossilized oosik (that portion of the walrus anatomy that Bob Loveless thought a knife handle should feel like),