bone blade

T

troubled youth

Joined
Apr 21, 2006
Messages
3
Hello, salutations, and all that usual first greeting whatnot. I have recently made a letter opener knife where I cast the handle in sterling (and it looks SO amazingly badass), but i am too lazy to take/post a picture. Anyway it had a cast bronze blade, which i removed because I am picky and didn't like it.
The question:
How would one go about turning a large animal bone (lamb) into a blade?? I know it probably wouldn't be too sturdy, but i have only done minimal work with bone and would like to know how this would be done.
(useful) responses are much appreciated.
Sorry if I am unknowingly asking a stupid question.

thanks

--niko
 
The most efficient knives in the "old days" were made of obsidian or flint - very sharp and durable .For lamb probably the best to start with is the scapula [shoulder blade].Never tried it so can't say how good it would be.The scapula was also used as a shovel.
 
To use new bone - clean it well and then boil it for an hour.Change water and boil again.let dry several days.Cut into pieces a bit larger than the desired use.Clean out all marrow areas and put in oven at 250 for two hours.It should be good and dry now. You can sand/grind it like wood.Wear a respirator.When it is close to the final shape,saturate it with thin cyano-acrylic (super glue) to fill all the pores and make it stable.After the glue has had a day to get well cured,finish the sanding and take it to as fine a grit as you want.It can be polished with white rough or rubbed and buffed with beeswax to give it a nice antique shine.
Stacy
 
Thanks so much Bladesmth, but for the glue you were talking about, would epoxies be suitable as well?? or would Krazy glue and the like be better for this?

--niko
 
Cyano-acrylic is what you want.Epoxy is fine for gluing the handle on,but to stabilize the bone you want the thin cyano.It will soak in a lot on most bone.It may take several coatings to get it all filled.Cheap crazy glue from the dollar store works fine.I buy the better grade in large bottles,but it only has so long a life.If you aren't doing a lot of stabilizing of bone and ivory,just get the cheapest squeeze tubes you can find.You will probably use several tubes.
 
I get beef bones from a butcher.

Boil till the tendons/meat and marrow are able to be removed. Scrub with a stainlees steel scrubber. change water and boil some more. Wash the bones with hot water and a degreaser...amonia or something like it.
While the spongy part of the bone is still soft scrape it out...a rough file works good for this.
Wash again.
Let dry.

Dremels work good for shaping the blade. First a cutting disk fro profiling then a sanding disk for grinding the bevels. Cheap dollar store fingernail files work great. Get the finest buffing file at the dollar store too. They give a great polish.
If you have a belt grinder it will go much faster but don't let the bone get hot. work it bare handed so you can tell just how hot it is.

Warning tho...working with bone STINKS. It's like the dentist drilling mulitiplied by a 1000.
Becareful using the superglue too. Wear glove so you don't end up glued to your work.
 
Thanks to all for the valuable information. I have finished the shaping and polishing (I used a polishing wheel with tripoli for this) and it has turned out very smooth and nice. In order to get the polish off I used a toothbrush and soap (as I always to do remove excess polish when I work with metal). Not all the polish came off, but the second after I wet the bone I felt stupid for wetting it and wondered weather I should heat dry it in the oven again, but my instructor said that that is not needed as bones are naturally working in a wet envornment and I have finished shaping it. I also did not stabalize it with the glue.
Is it necessary to re dry it and to stabalize it?

--niko
 
The stabilizing is done before the polishing.It seals the bone from absorbing water and also from having the pores fill up with polish.You can always clean it up,dry it well,and seal it with cyano-acrylic glue.After that re-sand and polish.
 
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