assembling my first antler handle knife and need help...

[Sharp_newbie]

Well alot of help.

okay so i have a few questions.

i am new to the world of ACTUALLY doing anything unique with a knife, i usually just sit online and drool at the works of others. So yesterday i was at the pawn shop and i saw a blade that just spoke to me, so well i bought it. the blade is a few years old, as far as i can tell it is a German issue army knife. but i really can't find anything on the damn thing. it has the markings Robi Klass on it. and online searching has come up blank, except i know that Robi klaas was the producer of the German WW2 daggers.
if anyone has more info on Robi Klass it would be greatly appreciated (i am really interested to know why i can't find anything about it online...)

so after thats out of the way now i have the first of what i hope to be many projects. i have been perusing the site finding pretty much everything i need to know about setting the knife in antler, but i have a few questions about where can i find nice exotic woods to make the sheath (i am going to make a wooden one not too sure why yet but thats what i want)

2. also i am wondering: is it possible to do silver inlay in antler? if so how? is it the same as if i was doing it in wood? and where can i find examples of silver inlay in antler (the antler is whitetail)

oh and lastly. i am going to go with the traditional way of setting the blade in the antler pithy core as outli8ned by this gent http://www.primitiveways.com/pt-antlerhandleknife.html
i was wondering should i let it sit in a vat of rainwater for a month? or will boiling it for !0 mins give me the same affect... the author of the last post there stated that he thought that boiling it would make it brittle, but i was wondering if someone could elaborate (i really don't want to wait a whole month before continuing my project.)

also is it just the pithy core that gets soft? the tang is a bit bigger that the width of the pithy core and im wondering if i should shave the tang down?

and lastly this is the picture of the knife next to my baby Ka-bar (current )

well what it will look like soon...

thanks a lot guys im looking forward to your replies. so i can get back to making my knife.

 

[Evan Martin]

As far as seasoned help i am not but i have done an antlered knife and its much easier to drill it and set it with epoxie. in my opinion i don't want to wait a month i have seen animal parts in water and they always rot, why waste time on something only you will know. but thats up to you exotic wood i get mine from www.exoticwood.biz

 

[Sharp_newbie]

So umm... can anyone else help me then?

 

[B Finnigan]

Do you have a picture of the tang? With as much curve as the antler piece has you may be in for some severe frustration. You have to drill a little on each end and then get something in to scrape out the sharp corner.

If this is your first knife I would use a straighter piece of antler. I have spent 4-5 hours fitting a through tang antler handle before. Each one has presented a host of challenges.

This is the most amount of curve I would ever want to deal with for now. As I learn more tricks and techniques I may go for more curve in th future.

http://groups.msn.com/Brentscustomknives/schoolauctionbowie.msnw?action=ShowPhoto&PhotoID=442

 

[HomeBru]

Go for it! You're basically creating a glue similar to hide glue by softening the pith of the antler, not as strong as expoxy, but it's a pretty cool process. I'd boil it just long enough to soften the middle, you won't effect the hard part of the antler unless you boil the daylights out of it and even then, it's not the end of the world.

Try to visualize the shape of the pith and shape the tang appropriately. The antler itself won't soften much, so you'll need to do some work. Heck, if it doesn't work, just pull it apart and epoxy the thing in. Nothing lost but time...

J-