I already had some ideas in my mind, but we decided to wait until Carter received the knives so that he could add his 2 cents after seeing the knives firsthand. After throwing out ideas back and forth, which included a bunch of pictures of different types of wood. I ended up going with desert ironwood with 3400 year old Ukrainian bog oak ferrules & end caps, and nickel-silver & black buffalo horn spacers. I originally thought about going with the burl DI, but Carter suggested going with regular DI due to the rustic aesthetics of the Koishi and Takeda. Following his advice was definitely the right decision
We held off on choosing the saya material until after the handles were near completion.Knowing how excited I was about this project, Carter was kind enough to periodically send me progress photos. Below is a pic of the knives with one of the options that I was considering (cocobolo), but I ended up going in another direction.
A few weeks after he started working on my handles, I mentioned to Carter that I was in the market for a petty. Ironically, that was also around the time that he was going to start selling his line of knives so I went ahead and picked one up
This also gave me opportunity to use the burl DI that I was lusting over. Pics of the handles after all the pieces were cut down to size and during the glue-up phase. Top and right knife/handle isn't mine but I wish it was.
At this point, it was time to choose the type of wood for the saya. I wanted a bit of contrast so I requested a lighter colored wood that would play well with the darkness of the ironwood. We ended up going with ribbon sapele.
These next two are of the completed handle and saya for the Koishi. My jaw nearly hit the floor when Carter sent me these pics.
While I don't have any prior experience with JKs and custom craftsmen, it is plain to see that Carter's worksmanship is superb. I hate the "pictures don't do it justice" cliche, but that's the honest truth. I'm sure that they were beautiful knives in their original state, but now these things are downright wicked!!!. Here are a few photos that I took after washing off all the drool from them
Thanks again Carter, and I'm looking forward to the next project!!!
