A cantankerous, foul-mouthed curmudgeon was once transplanted from Michigan to Carmichael, CA.
He worked at the Formica company in Rocklin, CA until a job injury messed up his lower back so much he could no longer function without surgery and pain killers.
Once his vertebrae were fused surgically, he used the vocational rehab program to retrain at the Colorado School of Mines, getting a 2-year certificate in gunsmithing.
He worked with, and absorbed by osmosis, the likes of Armand Swenson, Bill Davis, and others pioneers who were before my time but likewise paved the way.
He pulled out and showed me correspondence between him, Jeff Cooper, and Jack Weaver, amongst others. He got into a pissing contest regarding the rules of IPSC and USPSA, trying to avert the hardware race that they eventually became.
He preferred the 1911, but also had a soft spot for Browning Hi-Powers, S&W revolvers, and was known to do excellent work on Colt wheelguns, too.
That wasn't the be-all, end-all of his talents, though. Making custom gun parts for autoshuckers and wheelguns left his hands itching to create more, and create he did.
With JET lathe, Bridgeport mill, and Burr-King grinder, he branched his talents out into sharp pointy things, and customers started arriving not just for guns, but also knives.
He built 5 1911 variants for me, 4 from plain-vanilla Norincos that became IPSC race and carry guns, plus a 3.5" Caspian Officer's ACP from just a frame and slide when Caspian had a sale.
All of the guns wore fitted Kart NM barrels, and the Officer's ACP has a tapered cone lockup threaded onto the shortened Kart in lieu of a barrel bushing.
The slides were flat-topped, with either Bomars, Novaks, or his own version of a Novak installed. Frames and slides were de-horned after the Ed Brown beavertail was installed.
Parkerizing was the finish du jour. You wanted something different, have somebody else do it.
Then there were the knives. He tried damned near any variety of steel, from files, truck axle shafts, leaf springs, etc.
He ended up settling with plain O-1. Later on he added homemade San Mai, 154CM, and ATS-34 to his portfolio, but his heart was in O-1.
Watching him mill blade blanks from bar stock, then shaping them on the Burr King was awe-inspiring.
He'd use his thumb on the back side of the blank to feel the blade getting hot, and then he'd dunk it in a 6-gallon bucket of dirty water before resuming the grind.
We'd stay in either his knife shop or gun shop until Oh-Dark-Thirty, solving the world's problems over his preferred tribute of Mt. Dew (warm).
One late evening he asked me why I didn't try to make a knife or three. It never dawned on me, but I said I'd try if he'd point me in the right direction.
After that, I sourced a few blanks, and milled/ground them to shape under his watchful eye. I learned a few new words via his tutelage.
I created more than a couple nifty little skeleton skinner types, either naked or wrapped in paracord, from ATS-34. After the heat treat and draw, I opted for bead blasting instead of polishing.
The knives I made were never (in my own eyes) to the level of artistry that his own creations were, so I gave them away as gifts to friends and family. I knew where the aesthetic or dimensional flaws were, even if they didn't.
I didn't bother to stamp any of them, but I know the current owners still use them nearly every day, so The Master's training was valuable.
I continued to learn knifesmithing, but received orders for a new military assignment away from California in August of 1999. With much gratitude, I bid adieu to my friend and mentor, and promised to stay in touch.
He had a stroke shortly afterwards. A year later we visited to see how he was, but he was a shell of his former self. The knife and gun shops were stripped of their equipment and sold, he was essentially 100% disabled.
He passed away in August of 2010. It was only afterwards that I learned from his widow - he'd had high hopes I'd pick up where he left off.
I cleaned and oiled my Caspian Officer's ACP CCW gun the other day. It jogged my memory, so I went to the closet, pulled out the aluminum Halliburton case, and his knives saw daylight again.
I'll describe them in later posts, but here are the 6 pieces I kept from my late mentor and friend, Richard "Dirty Dick" Bancroft. There's a bunch of him in each and every one of those blades.
This Thanksgiving, I am thankful for friends and mentors. Now that I've been retired from the Air Force for a while, I do believe it's time for me to do some knifesmithing...
