Advice Needed

[Henleyj]

I am new to knife making and want to undertake a project that might be a little bit more than I can chew given my experience. I wanted to create a feather damascus bowie hunting knife so is anyone can offer pros and cons of possibly doing a feather damascus rather just a typical damascus piece. I was also interested in a pinecone resin handle or the knife but was curious if anyone had any suggestions for why or why not I should use that material, mainly if it is dishwasher safe. Also how durable the handle would be cuz this will be used for a camping/hunting/skinning knife. Please offer any advice possible

 

[Mo2]

You'll want to request to have your thread moved to the knife makers section for better replies. This is general knife talk.

https://www.bladeforums.com/forums/shop-talk-bladesmith-questions-and-answers.741/

 

[BitingSarcasm]

Damascus will be made out of carbon steel, so it won't be dishwasher safe at all. Pinecone resin slabs are not really hard use from what I understand of composite materials. They are safe for water and soap, but pinecone itself is not terribly durable and the places where it joins to the resin are going to be failure points. As stated above the smith forum will be more useful, but that's not an easy or simple project you want to try. Monosteel and Micarta or wood are much simpler and can still look nice, but don't let anonymous internet posters talk you out of something that could be tremendous fun to create.