D. Martell Vintage Sabatier Refurb

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Dave Martell

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Here is K-fed's vintage carbon Bresduck Sabatier that's been completely refurbed. I started by re-setting the profile where the heel/tang section had been neglected during sharpening, then I removed rust from the blade through grinding and thinned it a bit at the same time, then a new buckeye burl handle was installed (not an easy one at all - the tang and bolster were so whacked!!!), then finished up with an overall polish/clean & sharpen.

This was a fun diversion from the norm - thanks K! :)


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Dave,

The finished product is absolutely beautiful. Nice job.
 
Clearly an improvement, maybe you do know what you are doing after all ;) Nice piece of burl also.

Stefan
 
Is the buckeye burl dyed?


That's very fine work indeed.
 
Beautiful workmanship. It's cool how you were able to grind on the blade, but able to save the logo. This knife when new never looked this good.
 
Thanks for all the kind words folks. :)


To answer some of the questions/statements...

The wood isn't dyed (well not that I'm aware of anyway) and it was quite a lot lighter before the final stages of sanding.

I got real lucky with the preservation of the maker's mark. This is something that I was afraid would disappear (as they often do) but the luck came from a deep stamping that somewhat deformed the blade face making an impression. I was able to grind pretty deep and not touch the maker's mark until the final steps - SWEET!

I'd love to do another (or 10) of these because it was fun. Please feel free to go run up the bids on ebay. LOL :D
 
Ya, it's ok if you're into knife stuff.
 
Jaw dropping... I can't wait to see it in person. I may have to send you my other sab for a new dress.
 
Looks great, Dave.

Any reason you didn't just grind that bolster around the choil completely off? I don't mean the bolster that is part of the handle, but the part that create sharpening problems.
 
Outstanding Dave .
ya know a couple of those pictures posted on some of the gourmet sites or forums could start something.
 
Looks great, Dave.

Any reason you didn't just grind that bolster around the choil completely off? I don't mean the bolster that is part of the handle, but the part that create sharpening problems.


I felt that it was best to leave the Sabatier look which is somewhat that full bolster style so I made corrections to allow the knife to go to the stones without problems now. The idea is to sharpen the bolster and edge as one.
 
Next time we need a WIP. I would be curious to know how who got it to look that spectacular, unless it was just a ton of sweat.
 
Next time we need a WIP. I would be curious to know how who got it to look that spectacular, unless it was just a ton of sweat.


I think that the knifemaking has played a role in me getting better at this type of stuff. I noticed how quick I was able to do some of the finishing bits that used to take me forever to do before and the handle shaping was a cinch from all the rehandles I've got to do so yeah I really do believe that this is the reason why this one went so well.

Maybe I'll do a WIP some day but if I know myself I'd forget to stop and record what I'm doing because I can really get into the work and time just disappears and the next thing it's done. It sure would be cool do document some of this stuff sometime though.
 
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