A Birthday Knife and Sheath For Miss T

[Brokenolmarine]

Health Issues have kept me away for a while, and mostly it has been our old enemy Arthur, you know, Mr. Itis?  but, the Boss's birthday was coming up and I wanted to give her something special.  My primary hobby these days is knifemaking, although I have to buy the blade blanks and get creative with the finishing.  (See the evil Arthur above for the reason I don't forge the blades.   )

On a recent trip to Jantz Supply in Davis, Miss T had picked out a Synthetic pair of blanks she liked and tossed them on the counter.  They were dark chocolate with golden amber floating thru, nearly holographic.  Looking awesome.  I decided that would be the gift.  I had a blank left, and a rough brass bolster that would fit the blank.  We were in Business.  I started off the project by polishing the bolster to about 600 grit and choosing the best side.  Then I fitted it to the blank and peened it in place.  Once in place I polished it to 1000 grit to start off.  This is accomplished with a light spritz of water, a "touch" of dawn, and working up thru the grits to 1,000.

If you look in the background of the picture, you can see the chocolate amber blade blanks on the bench.  Move them in the light and the gold seems to move as well.  Since this isn't a knife forum, I won't go into great detail on the build, but the knife came out very nice, taking about a week, since Arthur and I had an agreement.  I'd work for no more than an hour and a half at a time.  No more than three sessions per day.    I finished the knife by sanding the wood to 1,500 grit and polishing the metal to 1,500, then using jeweler's rouge to bring it to a nice high luster.  Everything got three coats of bee's wax.

[Brokenolmarine]

Next, we would need a sheath for the birthday girl, something nice.  Hobby Lobby had all their jewelry supplies 50% off and I had never done bead work, time to give it a try.  Miss T isn't a pink girly girly, she is a farm wife.  But, she doesn't mind a little bling... my Christmas gift one year was a Mammoth Ivory working blade.  I bought several of the necklaces, and took them apart, chose the beads I wanted, including the dark jade tubular beads, some metallic accent beads with fake sparkle, and some end accent silver beads and stops.  I sewed the sheath by hand, and then went back and sewed each pair of beads between the measured holes.  It was my first attempt, and the one pair somehow didn't tighten completely.  I told the Boss I could / would resew the line, but she liked it fine.  It STILL bugs ME.  

 

What?  The Mammoth Ivory Knife?  Oh, okay, here it is....

[DoogMeister]

I make a few knives as well, also buying the blades.  Gives me something to make a sheath for.

My scales are from wood - ambrosia maple, curly maple, walnut, sassafrass, cherry, etc.

From one Marine to another, bravo zulu.

[Brokenolmarine]

If you look closely at the Mammoth Ivory Knife, the Mosaic pins are dog paws.

[Brokenolmarine]

3 minutes ago, DoogMeister said:

I make a few knives as well, also buying the blades.  Gives me something to make a sheath for.

My scales are from wood - ambrosia maple, curly maple, walnut, sassafrass, cherry, etc.

From one Marine to another, bravo zulu.

Thanks, I use a lot of wood in my scales as well, curly cherry, cocobolo, osage orange, spalted woods make great knives as well.

[Brokenolmarine]

Lately I have tried to push myself to build my skill levels and have done a few knives where I had to fit multiple components together to form the handles.  Bolsters, scales, inlays, pommels, or endcaps.  I like the challenge and try and make them fit seamlessly.  This was my first attempt at a major segmented build.  The blade is a Damascus blade blank from Jantz.  The Bolster and Pommel are both in Nickel Silver,  formed from bar stock and much harder to work than I ever imagined.  The turquoise came directly from a mine in AZ and is bordered by Burgundy G10.  The Pins are Nickel Silver Corby Bolts.  I was very happy when the knife came out almost exactly like the sketch, which I played with for days before starting.  Mainly because the blade blank and the turquoise were not cheap.

 

The latest was a much more complicated pattern, and the only change from the sketch was moving a pin hole in the blank to balance the design as I added the copper bolster and covered the extra pin hole in the blank as well as the lanyard hole.

This one has a Stainless Blade blank and Guard, with nickel silver pins.  The copper bolster and accents beside the blade guard also came from Bar Stock and were shaped to match the blank.  The turquoise came from that same order from AZ.  The wood for the scales is Black Walnut.  I haven't made a sheath for this one yet as I doubt it will ever be carried.