CONDOR BUSHLORE KNIFE

Condor Bushlore, sanded down, oiled up, sharpened and messed around with. This is basically phase one of tidying this knife up, as it comes delivered in a pretty rough state. I picked this up while in the USA for around $22.

This is how it turned up. As you can see the walnut handle is pretty rough, isn't oiled and doesnt look very nice. Definitely needs some work on it.

And below is how its currently looking after i messed around with it a little. I gave the blade a quick sandpapering to remove the protective grey ugly coating. It's 1075 carbon steel which does the job just fine for a bushcraft knife this cheap. I will probably regrind the blade at some point though. Unfortunately i took the picture with the flash on, so that has made it look a lot more yellow/orangy than it actually is. It's much darker in sunlight, which in my mind is more pleasing to the eye.

I used a few coats of tung oil and then carnauba wax on the handle after i sanded it down to make the grip  a little more amiable to my hand. I didn't really spend that much time on it to be honest, I just wanted to see what potential it had. Out of curiosity i just burnt the stripes in, not sure i like it like that or not, but at the end of the day its a light sand away from starting again. Still the knife itself its an excellent performer.

It does need a regrind, although this particular one did come razor hair shaving sharp out of the box.. If i get time, after i finish my Enzo trapper with South African Blackwood scales project, ill sand this down again and spend much more time on the handle to give it a much better look. Maybe even swap the walnut scales out for some kind of burl.

Still for $22, or around £30 here from Heinnie's, you can't really go wrong. You won't care what you do to it, and apart from the odd few vids i've seen on youtube where it has failed, it does the job well enough.