Kukri WIP - The Bone Collector

Its certainly not uncomon to see defects in natural materials. If you go into the wood scale selling places or those that sell mammoth ivory they are very visible and still the scales don't seem to cost any less. In fact a part of learning to work with the mammoth ivory requires the maker to do restoration and recovery work. Sometimes, therefore, the maker must accept what is, just is. Frank
 
Fill it and you'll never see it when its polished and pretty.

I like how this is looking Patrice.

-Peter
 
Patrice Lemée;11870281 said:
Thanks for the encouragement guys. :thumbup:

Ok, let's get back to it.
I decided to use some 30 minutes epoxy instead of the 5 minutes kind. I still haven't figured out a way to make it thinner so it takes quite a bit of work and time to get it past the bend in the tang.
Click to expand...

Most epoxies can be thinned with acetone. Cool WIP btw.
 
Hi!

Very interesting project! I am rather into traditional Kukris, but it is thrilling to see you finish this piece!

What I often do with wood defects (small cracks etc) is to mix wood dust that's been filed off that very piece with wood glue and fill up the crack. Once finished, you'd be hard pressed to see the defect any more. Don't know if this is an option here as well (not done reading the whole thread yet, so nevermind if this is what you are about to do anyways).

Regards,
Alex
 
Thanks for the tips and the good words guys.

Navasky, can the acetone affect the epoxy's performance in any way?

Alex, I already filled it with CA but will keep it in mind for the future. How resistant is the wood glue mix? My only concern would be that it doesn't wear like the surrounding stabilized wood does. Can it take a CA finish on top?

Back to work.

So after all this work we are back were we stared plus a little more shaping of the fittings.

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After grinding 3 little EDC I am working on I thought it would be a good idea to do a little cleanup with a 400 grit belt on the blade. All I can do to save a bit of hand sanding which as you can tell, I am postponing as much as I can. :o

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Now time to get rid of that ugly temporary pommel nut. Some stainless taken down to size.

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Drilled and tapped manually in the lathe since I still have some shaping to do on this.

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And the rest of the shaping. For those who have a lathe, this is really where you can let your imagination go and with different cutters and angles, give a little “humph” to the nut. A little like the cherry on top of the sundae thing. ;)

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I think we have something we can work with.

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Making the hole for the take down tool using a 1/8th endmill.

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And doing some final cleaning.

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More to come...
 
Now the plan was to do a solid pommel but what fun would sticking to plan be? ;)

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Trying to keep thins relatively symmetrical with a needle file.

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And back together to see if I did good. Still a lot of cleaning up to do but I think I did ok. Today was a good day in the shop. Makes up for the crappy ones. ;)

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Thanks again for your patience and following along.
 
WOW!!! That looks amazing!! I really love how this is turning out. Your handle looks great, the blade shape is awesome, and the cutouts are cool as hell. Very unique. I love it!
 
Love the pics of making the nut on the lathe Patrice! A lathe is one tool I don't have and don't have any experience on. Really love the possibilities. Nice job!
 
Sorry if I wait to post “thank you” but I feel bad for people thinking that there is actual update and seeing that it is not the case. :o But that doesn't mean I don't appreciate all your good words. It really make all the work I put in it worth it. :thumbup:

Jonny, You should put a metal lathe on your “To Buy” list. Not that expensive a machine in the grander scheme of things and like you said, it really opens up a world of possibilities. Plus I would say the learning curve is not as big as a mill for example, well as long as you don't get into the more advanced stuff like cutting threads for example. If or more exactly when you get one, I'll gladly share with you the little knowledge I have.
 
We are getting close to the end so changes are very small now.

Chucked the pommel nut in the drillpress to clean it up using files and then sandpaper.

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Here is a pic to show what I mean by minute changes. There is about 2 hours of work between the last pic in the preceding post and this one. Part of it is because at this point you really don't want to make a mistake so you you switch between parts making minute changes to each and trying your best to make them fit together. Not just mechanically but visually. Of course a big part of it is also due to the fact I am slow. :(

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I need to do the CA finish on the wooden part of the handle so it is sanded to about 600 grit.

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And then I start applying thin layers of CA. Just dripping it on and making sure it covers all. I then rotate it slowly by hand for a few minutes to get a more uniform coverage and no big drip that solidifies. I will do 4-5 coats with a good 12 hours of drying between coats. As you can see, this really bring out the pattern and coloring of the wood. I was amazed how much. :thumbup:

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This will be the last update for a while. Like I said before, the changes are small now and I don't want to bore you with the same pics over and over. If all goes well I am hoping to have it finished by the end of the week and have final pics for you next Monday. I'll still take some pictures and will add a few more if I can find some interesting ones.
Of course after that I have to finish the sheath so you are still stuck with me for a while. ;)

Thanks for looking.
 
You are finishing it up very nicely, Pat !!! Did I read slow? I think I have the record on that. Frank
 
I just got around to looking this over, mostly because I am a "regular knife" guy andc was not interested in a Kuri. But, I got to say you have made a work of art out of it. Your attention to detail is top notch and separates you from the main stream more than just the style of knives you chose to make.
 
Thanks guys.

Frank, let's call it a tie. ;)

Jim, that is a nice thing to say, thanks. At some point I got over my need to just finish knives and realized that I got more satisfaction out of quality than quantity. At least half the build time now is spent on details but I think it is worth it.
 
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