Yet another hobby...

I don't think I've ever posted a knife pic on the blog.

My knifemaking comes in fits & spurts. At this point, I don't make the knife blades myself. I haven't talked myself into buying a decent grinder since they're expensive, and while I've done some simple forgework in the past (when I worked as a farrier), I don't have a forge setup at the moment to do forged knives. I've got a spot out at my Dad's farm for a coal forge. I just need to get a new one built.

Maybe this fall.

Anyway.... my knifemaking is limited to using premade blanks. I either use them as is, or modify them a bit. The real work for me, is making the handles. I carry a fixed blade knife at work. Its a Gerber. It's my workhorse knife and it looks it.

I wanted a little nicer fixed blade knife for when I'm not working, so I ordered a blank from Jantz Supply, in Oklahoma. I had some amboyna burl scales tucked away for use as gun grips, so I hijacked them for the project. The last bit was a short piece of mosaic pin stock that was barely long enough to use in place of the traditional handle scale pins.

Here's the raw materials. The mosaic pin isn't shown in this shot, 'cuz I didn't know I was going that way when I took the picture:

I pinned the bolster to the blade and peened tight. Then I cut out the handle scales and red fiber liner material that goes between the tang and the scales. I epoxied one scale to the tang and let it set up for about 30 minutes. Then I put the knife on my drill press and drilled holes for the pins through that scale, using the existing holes in the tang as a guide. I used the lanyard hole and one of the forward weight saving cutouts in the tang for my pin locations.

Then, I epoxied the other scale/liner to the tang and clamped it up for 30 minutes. Here's how that looks:

You'll notice that you can still the the lines I drew for cutting out the handle scales. You want to cut the scales bigger than you need them, so you can sand them down exactly to match the tang.

When the epoxy had set up, I took the assembly back to the drill press and drilled the two pin holes in the new handle scale, using my previous holes as guides. This way, all the holes are perfectly lined up. I cut my mosaic pin in half, rolled it in a little epoxy, and tapped the pins into the two holes. Then the whole mess is left to sit overnight.

The next day, I sanded the scales down to their final shape. When everything is shaped like I want it, I go finer and finer with the sandpaper. The pins in the bolster seem to disappear, if you peen them right. This blade had a satin finish, so I don't really go for a mirror finish on anything. If I wanted to do that, after sanding to about 400 grit, I would buff on a buffing wheel.

I usually have some leather laying about, so I roughed out a pattern on a file folder and cut out some leather. I'm a trial and error guy, when it comes to knife sheaths. I knew what I wanted in my head, so I just fiddle with it until it's the way I want it.

Here's the finished knife and sheath.

And here's a closeup of the amboyna burl and one of the mosaic pins:

The blade is single edged, and measures 4 1/2 inches long, so its perfectly legal to carry in my state.

And it will look alot better than my beat up work knife too :)