Nick Powell is an Australian friend of mine, and although he is a skilled carpenter in daily life, a couple of years ago he discovered that his true passion is making knives.
Besides making useful models for friends & colleagues in the Brisbane area where he lives & works, once in a while he tries his hand at making Scagel reproductions, purely based on pictures.
For the handles he uses the same kind of materials that Scagel himself could have used also, but for the blades he chooses various modern stainless steels like for instance CPM-S35VN.
The heat treatment is done by one of Australia's leading heat treaters, and although Nick only made a few of these models yet they are already starting to gain a following among his growing customer base.
Currently he still does one knife at a time, but as soon as he can afford a professional grinder he's probably going to make them in small series.
A few days ago the postman brought me a surprise present: a small but sturdy wooden crate containing Nick's interpretation of this original Scagel, based on the single photograph below:
And this is Nick's version:
This is what Nick himself has to say about his work:
" This knife was actually started for you shortly after doing my first Scagel, but I had given up on it many times after troubles grinding those bevels.
It is as close to the original model as I could make it, and I even counted the washers and matched them to the same amount as the original.
I used my favorite steel because I wanted you to test it out, and it's a good balance of sharpening ease in the field and edge retention: hardened to 60-61 Rockwell (so maybe 62-64 in the edge), while the finish is 600 wet and dry (but I need practice as you will see)
The pommel is navy bronze for corrosion resistance, the guard is brass, and the washers are industrial compressed paper similar to spacer material.
The leather is compressed embossing leather in black and soaked in antique dye by me.
Brass spacers , stainless steel and copper as you know, and the handle is shaped for you by eye.
The leather sheath is clear embossing leather stained with acrylic antique leather stain and finished with saddle makers sealant.
The guard locks into the sheath for close carry and so the knife won't come out if you forget to close the button stud.
My design as far as I know, but I'm sure it's been done Lol."
Specs:
Overall length: 30,7 cm
Blade length: 17,5 cm
Blade thickness: 4,75 mm (ricasso)
Steel: CPM-S35VN stainless
Weight: 305 grams
Sheath: Leather
His lovely wife Hannah even did a short "making of" video about the knife & it's sheath: