Puma - nice score

[Xunil]

I took Charlotte (my 3 year old daughter) to a local flea market (boot sale) this morning - she likes the strange old lady who runs the flower stall there, and the hand made fudge

On one stall I spotted something familiar in a pile of old files chisels and screwdrivers and, well, here we go:

Someone has obviously tried to put a deeper hollow grind onto it at one stage of its life but other than that and some superficial rust, and one slice in the belt loop on the back of the sheath, it's in pretty good condition throughout.

The stag scales are solid with no cracks or dings.

In the spirit of markets everywhere some haggling ensued where I had the bare faced cheek to knock the price down from, wait for it, £15 ..........................













........... to ................











... £9

I have one of these knives up at the cottage and I use it often on deer and geese. An upswept blade isn't everyone's cup of favourite beverage but they work superbly once you get the trick of them.

I plan on a full restoration and this one will become my working knife at the cottage while the one up there can go into storage for Charlotte, or for her kids one day perhaps.

Can't argue for under a tenner...

 

[hog]

Great find, indeed.

 

[marcelxl]

You nicked that mate!

Good luck sleeping tonight



Nice find though

 

[pwb]

You jammy git .....
Love to see how it cleans up.

 

[stekker]

What a bargain!!!

Theo

 

[Tengu]

Bravo

You did well there. I have found a few blades at car boots, but most are ghastly

 

[British Red]

I love upswept blades for jointing and butchery work. They are great for working knives.

Bargain!

 

[Radix lecti]

Thats my kind of bargain,good find. Cheers.

Darren

 

[Xunil]

Well, today I decided to make a start on bringing this knife up to muster.

First off, mark the bevels and flats with permanent marker:

Hand sand the bevels with 180 and then 320 grit, just to highlight any high/flat spots and areas that need particluar attention:

Hand sand again, going 180, 240, 320 and 400 on the bevels and a quick 320 over the flats, to get a better look at any problem areas on the sides:

Coming along nicely, other than that small patch of rust on the flat near the guard:

Flats sanded to 320 grit (still more to do on them though) and bevels hand rubbed at 400 grit - preliminary edge established and tested on paper. Again, this stage highlights any uneven areas right at the edge that the naked eye cannot easily see - happily there was nothing to report and the slices were clean as a whistle:

I knocked the rust off the spine all the way around the tang and rubbed to 400 grit. More will be done on the flats and then I will rub the guard with 0000 wire wool but, for anow, early indications are good that this will turn out to be a keeper

NB: I could have done this in no time using a slow running belt on the belt grinder but I wanted to do it by hand for a number of reasons - it does illustrate that you can turn something with problems into something entirely different with only a little effort.

Time invested so far: about an hour.

Materials: about 2/3 of a sheet of wet and dry in four different grits - I won't count the ink from the permanent marker...



More to follow when I finish the knife out, probably next weekend.

 

[redandshane]

Great find I dream of such special treasusres and thanks for taking trouble to show pics and talking us through the restoration process
I will watch this post with interest

 

[Xunil]

Here we go (sorry about the rubbish picture - it's a horrible day outside):

400 grit vertical sanding on the guard and on the flats of the blade and 400 grit horizontal sanding on the bevels.

Edge is stropped and scary

I also did a 400 grit rub around the spine so that it's all fresh steel with no witness marks left from rust, but I didn't touch the Stag scales.

Stag looks silly freshly sanded and takes ages to darken down to the condition these scales are currently in. Why spoil a good thing ?



I didn't take the bevels any higher than 400 grit because it's blimmin freezing outside, so I'm stopping at this stage and the knife is now in full on user mode - I will retire my own Puma knife up at the cottage and put this one into active service in its place.

Total cost is under 3 hours of my own elbow grease and four sheets of wet and dry.

I will have to make new sheath for it though - the original smells of some sort of synthetic oil and it's just about had it. Still, you can't have everything for £9

 

[stekker]

You gave this knife a second chance,very nice work.
Show us please some pics when you've finished the sheath.

Theo

 

[mimir]

Great knife , great progress, looking very good after these stages of cleaning and sanding. Looking for to see the end result.

I didn't know the price of the orginal so looked it up ,very nice bargain

Here is if someone is interested.