How thin can you take mammoth tooth before it gets wonky?

J

Jason Fry

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Jun 5, 2008
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I have a customer who started out wanting mammoth ivory and now is thinking tooth. The knife is smallish, and would be best with scales in the 1/8 to 5/32 thick range. Assuming I'd need a thin G10 liner, how thin can I go with tooth before I've got to worry about cracking?

I hear it's a PITA altogether and hope I can steer him back toward the ivory, but I thought I'd ask the "experts" just in case.
 
I usually glue it to vulcanized liner material and mount it to the liners. Then I grind to the thickness needed. I use ca glue to bond it and it has worked well for me.Also this keeps breakage to a minimum when drilling screw holes.
 
I believe this to be a reasonable approach . I do the same. the BIG problems as far as I'm concerned is drilling holes.I'm now using some inexpensive diamond bits I bought out of China. Using the liner as a guide of course, I use a metric diamond bit undersize to the no. 55 for 0x80 screws and then open it with a 1/16 carbide bit for a clearance hole. Even this doesn't always give good results and sometimes recovery work must be done with ca or epoxy glue, and holes re drilled. Mammoth tooth is tricky stuff to work with or troublesome might be a better word. It breaks up very easily so if you see cracks or spaces, pour on the ca glue and do so as necessary as you go. Usually, the darker colours in the tooth are soft whereas the light colours like white are very hard. I do quite a few folders with this material but it means lots of care to work. I don't recommend it for a knife that is to be used or at least not much. I also recommend you get some silicon carbide belts before starting in your usual sizes of use. They are available from Tru Grit made by Klingspor. On many pieces of mammoth tooth the best ceramic belts are of no use. However, the silicon carbide ones are about 1/2 the price of ceramics. If I can help further I will be pleased to do so. Frank
 
Frank is correct in this stuff being tricky. I also agree that I wouldn't want it on a user. To answer you original question, I've used the 5/32" thickness laminated to some .030" G-10 and it worked pretty much the same as any other thickness. Oh yeah, again, like Frank said, once its glued to the G-10, flood the surface with CA glue and keep doing so until all the voids and cracks are filled. I suggest that you use odorless CA, if you have it. Grinding this stuff with reg. CA STINKS. Its gonna stink anyway but the reg. CA just adds another dimension to the stench. Feel free to call or email me for further help if necessary. Good luck.
 
I saw an excellent folding knife WIP on here from a couple years ago, where paper was epoxy saturated to the back of the tooth, much like that reinforcing mesh they glue to the backside of granite countertop material.
 
I find that any thinness less than the mammoth had it in his mouth risks splitting. I hate mammoth tooth for anything but a display stand.
 
I was watching a show last night where the people were looking for mammoth (anything) for jewelry/inlays/knife scales etc. They were saying that you could smell when you get close, and that it stinks pretty badly. One of the pieces that they found was decaying, and had the blues and greens that nice mammoth sometimes has.

Doesn't really add much to the conversation, but it made me think of this thread. I was a little surprised about the smell and decay. :o
 
I can't say I've been on site to find it , but I handled it out of a box it was thrown into soon after it was found. It didn't smell then, but once you start working on it, well that's a different thing.
Another suggestion when working this stuff is to finish by hand sanding only and no buffing. The buffing will most often add a rough texture. Frank
 
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