crowned antler

J

jasperdog032469

Joined
Mar 14, 2007
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I'm getting ready to make a Bowie knife that I am going to have my sister-in-law do some sort of scrimshaw on. After a lot of practice she's getting pretty good at it, so I thought I'd get some sort of crowned horn and polish the end for her to work on....I've looked at aks, macecraft, and alpha, but didnt see any...anyone have any suggestions on type of horn and where to get it?

Thanks,
Dave
 
Dave im pretty new at making knives ive made about a doz and 12 more in various stages . I did a crowned horn It a through tang with a threaded rod. Well its the most diffficult to date ,I used white tail and got several off a friend to try. The cap over the crown is where i ended , the knife is real nice but i just cant get over the hump of how to finish off the crown nice to enclose the nut on the threaded rod. I wont try it again till i have a milling machine. kellyw
 
Masecraft has it just may not be shown. They had a lot of crowns at the Wannamakers show in Tulsa. Sambar
 
Your best bet for finding a crown that will work is at a knife show. There will usually be someone selling local antler. Mule deer, blacktail, and western elk are the ones I prefer the most.
 
Scrimshaw may be a problem with some crown stag. The porosity of the material may soak up more ink than desired. Do a few test lines first before doing the whole design. Sealing the crown area with super glue prior to the finish sanding/polishing ( last step before starting the scrim) will help a lot,too.

Some other tricks for decorating a crown end :

Inset an antique coin into the crown. A mid-1800's US quarter dollar sells for $10-15.

For a presentation piece, inset a silver disc, cut to fit, and have it engraved with the presentation info.

Inset a piece of ivory into the butt, and scrimshaw that.This works well if the butt is full of holes.A small ivory disc costs just a few dollars.

Stacy
 
W. Goddard told me about a knife he was all excited about making and he did the scrimshaw himself. This customer liked it so much he paid Wayne extra to remove the scrimshaw.
 
jasperdog032469 said:
I'm getting ready to make a Bowie knife that I am going to have my sister-in-law do some sort of scrimshaw on. After a lot of practice she's getting pretty good at it, so I thought I'd get some sort of crowned horn and polish the end for her to work on....I've looked at aks, macecraft, and alpha, but didnt see any...anyone have any suggestions on type of horn and where to get it?

Thanks,
Dave
Click to expand...

Dave, I have scrimed a lot of mule deer crowns. You need to get the crown smooth and the tools I use are Sheetrock screws in a piece of dowel. One shaped to an angled chisel point and one with a sharp tip. Why, the crown on most antlers are very hard compared to ivory so tough tools are needed.
 
There are "tons" of antler sold on eBay: elk, white tail, black tail, mule, moose, caribou, reindeer, axis, sambar... It's just difficult to get a clear sense of what you're buying from photos. It's hard to tell the scale, figure, curves, etc, via cyberspace.
 
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