scaly knives

In my mindless meanderings around the internet, I occasionally end up at places positively chock-a-block full of drool-worthy eye-candy, such as Blade Forums – I could absolutely spend hours at that website, digging through countless examples of beautiful tools and hardware that I could never hope to afford (or rationalize), and just appreciating them for the craftsmanship involved in creating them. While futzing around on that particular site, I happened to stumble across the fine works of a certain Phillip Dobson, and the scales and handles he can create for Kershaw knives (and other tools, if you are interested).
A short email exchange and a few days later, I went from this:


… to this:


The scales are comprised of desert ironwood burl, and cut as sequential book matches – they were cut from the same piece of wood, with only the saw kerf missing between them. And, yes, they look better than they do in the pictures:


(The pictures really do not do the scales justice, mostly due to lack of skill and lack of good lighting, both on my part. However, Mr. Dobson suffers from no such shortcomings, and I am fairly certain these two knives are wearing my scales.)
The ordering process was about as painless as such things can get – I dropped him an email asking about various wood types; he responded, providing links to examples of those woods; we narrowed it down a bit more based on my appreciation for the three-dimensional shininess certain woods and other materials can get (which is where I learned about “chatoyancy”); he suggested a final product and cost (in this case, $55); and I had the scales in my hands less than a week after he started working on them.
Once here, I undid four screws on one side of the knife, and five screws on the other (Be careful when removing the blade hinge screw – that scale covers the Hawk Lock system, and the springs are teensy. Likewise, be careful when retightening it – too tight, and the blade will not rotate properly.), swapped out scales, and tightened everything back up again. Of course, I think the RAMs were designed to be that simple – not all knives enjoy the same utilitarian design, so bear that in mind when considering replacement grips/scales.
The new scales add a bit of girth to the handle (which I like), removed a bit of grippiness from it (which I am kind of ambivalent on), and probably added a little mass (I did not take before/after measurements, and I do not really care about that either). Additionally, they work just fine with the knife’s original clip, and it still holds in my pocket as tightly, if not more tightly, than the original scales.
In general, I heartily recommend Phillip Dobson’s work, craftsmanship, and customer service – he produces outstanding products at resonable costs, and puts up with people who might be a little ignorant on the topic of woods and carving them. If you ever need scales for your knives, custom jewelry boxes, or other such woodwork done, I do suggest you drop him an email at “dobsonboxes (at) gmail (dot) com”. I have no idea if he does 1911 grips, but you could always ask.
[2034 09NOV09 Update] I got up off my lazy arse and took the latter four pictures with a wanna-be lightbox-ish-looking-thing (a tripod, a white towel, and a stack of books) and no flash, so the wood pops out a lot better, and you can see all of its detail without any flash washout. Also, now those four pictures will look markedly different from the first one… that is why. [/Update]