Skip to main content

Re-handle a knife with stag.

 
A piece of stag among the bag of dog chews I purchased online. Frankly, I could not tell the difference between the antlers of Elk, Moose, Deer, etc. I only know they call a male deer a stag, or a buck. I'm not sure if female deer (doe?) has antlers.
Well, that stirs my curiousity. Googled. Nope. Maybe a small nub, but that's all.
But.. a female reindeer does have antlers, and they are actually caribou...but that's a topic for another day.
 
What I do know: It's cheaper to buy dog chews than antlers labelled as knife scales. Well, they can't charge you $25 for a split piece of horn which you're going to throw to your dog. It felt wrong to do that.
Knife scales, that's another story.
 
 
 I really don't know why I bought the huge bag of antlers. Especially since I have not completed forging even one knife. Many of my blanks are either half forged, broken from cold hammering, or semi finished awaiting heat treat.

But I see no harm in practicing on a cheap fighting knife. This knife is from Tramontina, the "Stanley Tools" of Brazil. The aluminium rivets are a breeze to remove by countersinking.
 Looks like a East European bayonet, doesn't it?

One rivet passes through the 2 scales and the knife handle;
Another secures the tang to the handle, but hidden under the scales;
The third passes through the scales, but not secured to the handle.
Odd.

 In the process of working this knife, I realized why custom knife makers charge so much. It's not so much the material. It's really a lot of work.
I split the blank in half. Cut to length.Shaped it to my fancy with files.



I find that a junior hacksaw blade works well for antlers. But it also makes me wish I had a scroll saw.
(Bottom right: The pile side scale completed)


 The other side's handle profile traced out.
Tracing the profiles on the ends. (Both finger guard and pommel ends)


 The only brass pins I have are 1/8" in diameter. Too small for the holes in the tang and handle.
I took a long brass screw and filed down the threads.

 This knife jiggles a bit, and I notice a gap between the ricasso and the finger-guard. So I made a spacer. These would be called "Seppa" on a Japanese Sword.




Cheap cast alloy and chrome plating do not go well with age and use. I tidied things up a little with a ball pein hammer and a small file. My target look will be a buck native steel.

Beat the snot out of the pommel too.
 
 
No, the bug here is not Spyderco's latest offering.
But Persistent it is.


The fit and finish won't win any awards here. I nearly fell into the gap while peening at the edge.

It does provide a very good exercise on how contouring affects the markings, how the scale tends to interact with the bolsters, how they feel in the hands..How tight the peened brass rivets hold (quite firmly),..etc..
 The knife is really an experiment, so I filed on a restless swedge at the clip point.

 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

SHARPENING WITH ARKANSAS STONES

What on earth are they? A user made box of assorted Arkansas stones. They are America's answer to: The Wales' Welsh Slate (Dragon's Tongue); The Scotch Tam O'Shanter; The English Charnley Forest stone; The Japanese Tenin Toishi; The German Thuringian Hone; The Chinese Guangzhou River bedrock; The Belgian Coticule; You get the idea. Local rocks that you use to sharpen mama's kitchen knives.   A collection of smaller pocket-sized Arkansas stones  In this entry, I will not try to tell you what you probably already know. What is the point of describing that oily rock you already have under your bench, in your drawer, in a can of kerosene? Note also, that the sharpening I describe here is best applied to woodworking in general. I am an amateur handtool woodworker. Sharpening a straight razor would be entirely another branch of science. I do not profess to know all there is to know about sharpening or Arkansas stones; I simply failed

An Essential Pocket Knife : The Stockman

You're so right. I should be writing about Whittlers instead of Stockman knives. Afterall, this is a wood working blog. But do you whittle the whole day? Perhaps. Can you peel an apple with a whittler? Maybe, but not as well. What if you forgot the butter knife at a picnic, or you somehow need to spey or neuter an animal in an instant?.. (ok, I'm pulling your leg, but I'm referring to the ubiquitous spey blade in your stockman.) A stockman knife (Also called your Gandpa's EDC) will do all of the above with ease, and it will WHITTLE. My shallow pocket and minute brain says that Whittlers are for collectors. Try buying a Stag handled split-backsping whittler. They are not cheap. This is one of the forty stockmen I've purchased online. The other 39 are on their way. And yes, I have issues. The stockman bug maybe. Wait till my wife sees them: I like to imagine myself as a craftsman first, woodworker second. Now you see why I bought this brand. Looks so

A Case for Chisels: Stanley 5000 series

“Life being very short, and the quiet hours of it few, we ought to waste none of them in reading valueless books.” -John Ruskin. Substitute the word "books" with "blogs", and perhaps you should stop reading. I did my part and you are warned. No, I can't refund 4 minutes of your life. F or the most part of my woodworking life, I've kept my loose chisels in felt lined drawers. (I mean excess chisels purchased on impulse: Those of cast steel, those of boxwood, those octagonal London snobs, those ergo grips that promises an orgasm with each mortise, the socketed, the tanged, the handle-less tangs, the long paring ones, those curious crank-necks, the basic pig stickers, the vintage ferrule-less-...you know. I know. Some folks have too many hammers or smoothing planes or trammels. I'm a chisel guy. But the ones that are constantly on the move live in a canvas tool roll. I like the look of a chisel roll, except that the edges tend to slice the