Built for a good friend who is massively into his military knives, he had an idea to recreate a Bob Loveless inspired Chute knife, he has long since been a fan of the knife and design but never thinking it quite military looking enough, a bit too polished and shiny, especially given it's back story.

The Chute was originally made by Loveless for a customer by the name of Harry Archer, Harry was a CIA operative working alongside covert and special forces during the Vietnam war. Archer worked with Loveless to design a knife that would be perfect for said covert military and special forces work. Chute stands for parachute as the sharpened swedge was included to aid any potential wayward paratrooper to cut away in an emergency. Subsequently the knife did indeed become very popular with both airborne and special forces operatives.

In one of the famous Loveless books all the designs are photographed on ¼” graph paper so this was drawn to the exact dimensions of the original, we made the guard integral with the scales and I designed in a smaller ricasso and recessed the choil, small touches that in my opinion not only look better but make the knife more serviceable and easier to re sharpen. We also added a small glass breaker to the pommel.

Handle scales are of Norplex Suretouch G10/rubber composite for grip and the blade gets an Armour Black Cerakote coating.

The AD Vesuvius.

A fully customer led design.

Back in the early 90's Jack Black was a writer for various outdoor magazines, he had his idea of the U1 and together we designed what you see here, less than two dozen were made and all were serial numbered, this knife is from my own collection, #009.

A nice thing to own for me, it is a piece of my history and although far from perfect in it's execution, it is a perfect example of what was leaving the Pat Mitchell (Cutlers) workshops around 30 years ago.