IMAGES COURTESY OF THE PARTICIPATING MAKERS UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED
TOM
om Ploppert has been building knives only since lost time in spades. He is a member of the South Texas Slipjoint Cartel, a group of makers who all studied under BLADE Magazine Cutlery Hall-Of-Fame® member Bill Ruple (page 12)—as did all the cutlery artisans featured in this edition of Shop Dump. More recently Tom has been an acolyte of another legend, the late Cutlery Hall-Of-Famer Tony Bose (page 12), who he credits with helping achieve a milestone in his knifemaking career: making a lockback whittler.
Not surprising given his mentors, Ploppert specializes in traditional pocketknives, both singleand multi-blades, in stag, bark ivory, and jigged bone, as well as more modern standbys such as Micarta® and carbon fiber. Blade-wise Tom works with both damascus and a variety of stainless steels and, like his mentor, his work is clean and crisp as an ironed linen sheet. He keeps his shop in similar order.
He starts off the
