Description
When I first moved to Sheffield in 1993, I was given a box of old blades and springs by Stan Shaw for me to practice on. There were a huge range of styles and sizes, all of them carbon steel, some stamped out but most of them were beautifully forged. I always intended to make them up into more contemporary looking knives but I wanted to wait until I could do them justice.
These pruners are the first three knives that I have made up from these old blades. In keeping with their age, the knives have occasional, small patches of spider rust on the surface of the blades. Clean and oil the blade after use and you will get years of service out of this piece of Sheffield history.
The liners and bolsters have been machined out of a thick sheet of nickel; this gives a neater stronger resolution and I was able to dovetail the scale material into the bolster area.
The scale material on this one is a fossilised mammoth tusk. Trade in the ivory from the tusks of dead mammoths has occurred for 3000 years and continues to be legal. Mammoth ivory is rare and costly, because mammoths have been extinct for millennia and scientists are reluctant to sell museum-worthy specimens in pieces, but this trade does not threaten any living species. The majority of mammoth ivory is gathered as it becomes visible in melting Siberian permafrost.
