..... and Russ, we need to see some pictures of your GR butcher and sheath.
Well here are a couple of pictures....going back to when I started.
I had several choices of scales, and I started with the "dark bone" (the one on the left), which was a mistake, after I drilled them and was putting the brads in, I tapped the last brad just a wee bit too hard and I broke both sides of those scale!
But actually, that was okay with me, because once I had a couple of brads in and hefted the knife I realized they were far too heavy and really put the knife off balance...but I thought what the heck, they look good and I'll go with it...then, after I broke 'em I was almost relieved...
Then I choose the nice Walnut, which was about 1/4 the weight of the bone scales, and the balance of the knife is, IMO, just about as good as it gets for actually working with a knife.
There was a time, and even on some knives I have today, where I actually preferred a little weight in the handle....but not with a working blade as long as the GR Butcher!
Here is the finished knife and sheath....I screwed-up on the sheath, a couple of times, and I have full intentions of redoing a sheath sometime down the road, but the knife itself turned out as well as I had expected. I believe this is a very "useable" knife as it feels right in the hand.
For a "big" knife I feel I can keep control of that blade fairly well.
Here is a picture of that knife and my all time favorite knives for working when hunting.
The top one is a small, and very handy, knife made by Marbles...it's a old knife that I have used as a patch knife, a skinning knife, and a flat out eating knife. Like me, it has been around a while.
The second one down is a Puma...although old enough to vote twice over it keeps right on tickin', and holds an edge like no other knife I have ever owned....I have actually been guilty of using a rock to beat on the blade when bustin' an Elk pelvic while quartering out an Elk in the Idaho Bitterroot Mountains...but Elk hunting is a young man's game, and I have likely made my last hunt in the high country.
Uncle Russ...