Almost 8 years ago I decided I wanted a custom made knife so I started looking around to see what was out there. I got enamoured with the Bob Loveless style, but not being able to afford one of his knives I looked around for alternatives. I found an alterative on Ebay. A new maker (I have since forgotten his name) had a Loveless style drop point hunter in 154 CM with a full tapered tang and beautiful (at the time) horn scales. I purchased it.

5 years ago I took a nice buck off of my river stand on property I own with my brothers. The deer ran across the river and I had to wade across to get him. I dragged him back across the river and then about 400 yards to the truck.

Got him loaded on and took him home. That is where I realized I had "misplaced" my custom knife. So I went back to the stand, crossed the river, checked the gutpile, came back, checked where I had loaded the deer, checked where I had driven out of the property, and in short, checked everywhere. Again, this was 5 years ago this November, in Northern Minnesota.

Today my wife and I were out shooting targets on the field that is adjacent to the woods where my deer stand is. I had shot targets at 100 yards and moved back to shoot at 200 yards. I fired the first round and the wife walked over to the target to check where I had hit. On the way there she stepped on "something sharp" she first yelled. I ran over as fast as I could, thinking she had injured herself. Fortunately she had not. But low and behold, it was my knife, sans the custom sheath that it was in when I lost it. It must have fell off the pickup when I was driving out with the deer.

154 CM steel is pretty good stuff. Here are a couple of photos of the knife today. Remember, this thing has been out in a field for 5 years.

That's an excellent steel and it's amazing how well it held up against the elements for five years !! Polish it up and put it back to work !!

A real treasure...and once cleaned up, a great story.

I didn't take photos from the top and bottom, but if I had, you would see that the scales are definitely going to have to be replaced as they are quite deformed and have pulled away from the blade. I have a feeling that today those scales would cost me almost as much as the knife did 8 years ago. I might have to go with blaze orange micarta this time around.

The blade can likely be recovered with some sandpaper and an 8" buffing wheel. There may be some corrosion marks that don't come out, but that knife is recoverable and likely to be useable. The horn is likely to be the only real issue.

BTW: I am travelling and will be back home near the end of October. I think I have some Loveless rivets. Can send a couple if you wish to replace the skins. The existing ones will have to be drilled out.

They are not rivets in the usual sense. They are slotted copper ferrels and a stainless center. You install them by countersinking the skin on each side, fill the hole with epoxy, and tightening the ferrels up. You then sand them off and what you get the pretty Loveless rivet effect.

your knife looks very much like a Norfleet custom. you can see his work over at bladeforums in the makers section, and also at his web page.

Elron1

Elron

I just ordered one from him. He said he would have it to me in 90 days. When it gets here I will take a look at it and compare it, but from the photos I looked at I don't think its the same. His blades are shorter.

Guys,

I really think it's appropriate to say that Norfleet customs may look like Loveless knives. He was there way first and invented the design. His lovely blades influenced a whole lot of folks!

I have and regularly use an original Schrade 8OT "Old Timer" stockman's pocketknife that I found out in the yard something like 9 months or a year after losing it, close to 35 years ago. It had some rust that I took care of at the time with Naval Jelly, steel wool, oil and resharpening. It's spotty and tarnished looking with a bit of light pitting, but otherwise no worse for wear. Don't know what steel they used at the time, but I'd expect a standard carbon steel like 1095.

Congratulations on recovering that one after 5 years! I'm glad your wife wasn't hurt stepping on it, too!