UKPK Aftermarket Scales

[Superfool]

Hi all.

A few years ago I bought my first Spyderco on the recommendation of a friend. It was a UKPK in CTS BD1N with Black FRN scales. Obviously I was sold on this great little knife immediately, and it wasn't long before I wanted to pimp it up a little. Sadly unlike a lot of knives, this had no liners so aftermarket scales were hard to come by.

I found a few people who make them, as no doubt plenty of others have, and I wanted to create a thread to show the work. I wanted to show the pictures that I have taken of the scales I had bought, rather than filtered and photoshopped instapics.

I want this thread to be the same for all of you; I spoke to TazKristi, who is happy as long as we follow some rules.


1. It is OK to share information about a creator and their work; please make sure it is a firsthand experience that others could benefit from.

2. Please feel free to name them, and if others inquire about more information, sharing that through a private message is fine.

3. Please do not self-promote; this thread is being hosted on a SPYDERCO forum, and they are being kind to allow this at all. This is not Reddit or Facebook Marketplace. Many other companies would not be so cool about this at all.

4. Positivity and politeness please.

Thanks everyone.

David

[Superfool]

Blue Micarta - V.P.Creations in the UK

[Superfool]

Spalted Maple - V.P.Creations in the UK

[Superfool]

Titanium Matching Pair octopus design - Custom Request by V.P.Creations

[Coastal]

All great; the Ti is especially sweet!

[JRinFL]

Wow, excellent work! Great idea for a thread as well.

[Superfool]

All great; the Ti is especially sweet!

Thanks - PM replied to.

[Superfool]

Wow, excellent work! Great idea for a thread as well.

Thanks mate.

It was just super-hard getting any reference point for what I wanted, and I figure this will be a great place to have it all in one thread.

[foofie]

Sharing some of mine. These scales are all from Cuscadi - Hawaiian Koa, blue denim/rag micarta, and canvas micarta. I did modify the scales a bit - sanded contours, sanded the koa to make the grain more visible. Back when I had them made, Cuscadi was the only game in town. Very excited to see more makers working on one of my favorite platforms.

[cjk]

Sharing some of mine. These scales are all from Cuscadi - Hawaiian Koa, blue denim/rag micarta, and canvas micarta. I did modify the scales a bit - sanded contours, sanded the koa to make the grain more visible. Back when I had them made, Cuscadi was the only game in town. Very excited to see more makers working on one of my favorite platforms.

…

Hi foofie, do yours all have dragonfly clips on them? The clips seem shorter than normal.

[foofie]

Hi foofie, do yours all have dragonfly clips on them? The clips seem shorter than normal.

Yes, good eye. It fits a bit better in my hands.

[Superfool]

I really like the denim micarta

[RevMike]

Sharing some of mine. These scales are all from Cuscadi - Hawaiian Koa, blue denim/rag micarta, and canvas micarta. I did modify the scales a bit - sanded contours, sanded the koa to make the grain more visible. Back when I had them made, Cuscadi was the only game in town. Very excited to see more makers working on one of my favorite platforms.

That Koa looks great. I'm a sucker for wood handled knives.
Hope I'm not being a bother but could you also post a photo from the top and bottom?

[PSquared]

Cuscadi carbon fibre

I do think that this is the appropriate place to mention that UKPKs are, in my mind at least, not the ideal model for scale replacements. The pivot bolt only has a torx hole on one side which would be fine with liners with a D shaped pivot hole. It does however make adjustment of the pivot difficult once in the aftermarket scales as the pivot rotates when you try and tighten it with little or no grip on the other side of the bolt (most of the aftermarket scales will have round pivot holes). It is fixable / manageable, but not ideal. And then there was the frustration of dealing with red locktite.

These are not insurmountable problems but it might be a slightly more frustrating scale swap than you would experience on other models.

[Superfool]

That looks great. And yeah, they can be a bastard, which is why this thread is here. To help sort out what is good and what is bad.

[foofie]

That Koa looks great. I'm a sucker for wood handled knives.
Hope I'm not being a bother but could you also post a photo from the top and bottom?

Not sure this is what you are looking for?

[RevMike]

Yes. That was what I wanted to see.
Thank you and cool knives.

[Superfool]

A little double annodized fluted titanium, anyone?







V.P.Creations

[Frozenspyder]

Wow, that fluted titanium looks amazing. Way to take a great but somewhat plain knife and turn it into something classy. I bet you don't forget it's in your pocket with the weight of that titanium.

[fixall]

Blue Micarta - V.P.Creations in the UK

I really like how those blue Micarta scales turned out in particular! What options did you go with? I might have to do something similar in maroon Micarta I think. :)