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The BladeForums.com 2024 Traditional Knife is ready to order! See this thread for details: https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/bladeforums-2024-traditional-knife.2003187/
Price is$300$250 ea (shipped within CONUS). If you live outside the US, I will contact you after your order for extra shipping charges.
Order here: https://www.bladeforums.com/help/2024-traditional/ - Order as many as you like, we have plenty.
Antler
- Thread starter Rust
- Start date
Wear a respirator when sawing, grinding or filing this stuff. The dust is dangerous to your lungs. Don't let it get too hot when working, because it will burn. Don't work in the house, because it stinks as hell. Give it a fine finish. I use micromesh abrasives with up to 12000 (twelve thousand) grit to polish it. As a last step, wipe it with some boiled linseed oil to seal the pores, let harden and polish with a cotton cloth.
In my opinion this is still the best and most beautiful handle material of all if you have good quality stuff. It is natural. It polishes like ivory without the bad tendence of ivory to crack. It doesn't shrink or swell a lot. It get's a nice patina during long use. It is extremely wear resistant and doesn't break easily. Some knifemaker once said that nothing sells a knife faster than a nice stag handle. And he was right.
Achim
In my opinion this is still the best and most beautiful handle material of all if you have good quality stuff. It is natural. It polishes like ivory without the bad tendence of ivory to crack. It doesn't shrink or swell a lot. It get's a nice patina during long use. It is extremely wear resistant and doesn't break easily. Some knifemaker once said that nothing sells a knife faster than a nice stag handle. And he was right.
Achim
- Joined
- Sep 29, 2001
- Messages
- 119
Thank you very much. The 12,000 grit abrasive finish surprises me; I wasn't aware such a thing even existed. I thought I remembered hearing something about the dust being hazardous, but I wasn't sure.
Is the horn solid throughout, or does it have a marrow-like core? I can get a few handles out of this piece if I'm careful, but some of them won't be pretty without some fancy-arse carving.
Is the horn solid throughout, or does it have a marrow-like core? I can get a few handles out of this piece if I'm careful, but some of them won't be pretty without some fancy-arse carving.
Density of the antler is dependable on the kind of antler you have got. Sambar, axis, moose, whitetail and reindeer/caribou are very dense and don't have a lot of marrow. I have seen a lot of these without any marrow. On the other hand there are a lot of other species like maral or european stag that have big antlers which are 90 % marrow with a very thin shell of massive material. These are nearly unuseable as knife handles. You will have to cut them into pieces to know what you have.
Micromesh is a series of abrasives that were developped to re-polish the acrylic glass windows of glider aeroplanes. They work very good on every material that is not too hard. I use them on any kind of handle material including bronze, copper and silver. These are NOT throw away abrasives. The grains are embedded in a latex covered surface. I make about 50 to 100 knives a year and use about one set per year. A set of 9 sheets with a soft sanding block and a micromesh soft file costs about 25 $ over here in Europe.
Achim
Micromesh is a series of abrasives that were developped to re-polish the acrylic glass windows of glider aeroplanes. They work very good on every material that is not too hard. I use them on any kind of handle material including bronze, copper and silver. These are NOT throw away abrasives. The grains are embedded in a latex covered surface. I make about 50 to 100 knives a year and use about one set per year. A set of 9 sheets with a soft sanding block and a micromesh soft file costs about 25 $ over here in Europe.
Achim