Making a knife and have a question

Welcome All R Crazy! I see the "1" over there! Hope you enjoy your stay! I dont know any of them materials either. I thought Ilex was a kind of Antelope...maybe that was Ivex??

All-R-Crazy said:
I wish I had more than nothing to guess but I don't know the materials :(
But good luck on making it
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Well since I made my very poor guess I did the google thing too. I've whittled em all except the Ilex.
I have a lot of the Peltogyne on hand, not much Diospyros Crassiflora, and a little bit of the Dalbergia Retusa, whittle tons of it, been hard to find good stuff locally.

All real crowd pleasers.
 
I think Ibex is the animal that our pal in Texas is thinking of. Least ways I think he's our pal, he sent me a gift knife once so maybe our relationship is over and it's time to start seeing other people. It is indeed Ilex for your wood, the one I've never played with.
 
You sent me one also remember? So that makes it a wash!
Bawanna said:
I think Ibex is the animal that our pal in Texas is thinking of. Least ways I think he's our pal, he sent me a gift knife once so maybe our relationship is over and it's time to start seeing other people. It is indeed Ilex for your wood, the one I've never played with.
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Aunti is living proof that there is no truth to that superstition. She probably has gifted more knives than we will ever see in our lifetime and definitely has plenty of friends!

Ilex! Well ill be dang! That stuff is growing all over my property. I recently cut a few stalks to make hammer handles from. It dries out really hard but eventually makes one good split from the center out so it is hard to get a good piece to work with unless it is really big. It is the only plant in North America that has caffeine naturally. Called XXXXX over here. Invasive and people hate it but I like it and makes good tea. Toast the leaves and make tea just like any other tea leaf. I manicure it with my 25" Sirupapti and let it grow into round bushes and other add shapes. cool stuff.
 
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halfsquelch:

If you can get some Australian Bloodwood that would make amazing handle scales. It's very hard and dense, deep red color, and takes a fantastic polish. Better than cocobolo in my opinion, and more stable than ebony, which tends to develop cracks over time.

I've been told that Cardinalwood is the same species as Bloodwood, but more of a mixed color. I can't remember offhand the scientific names for these, but it should be easy enough to find.
 
Davidf99 I believe you are talking about Brosimum Parense. (sp?) Tough to find around this area. I think it looks almost more like Cedar crossed with Cherry. Sort of...
I haven't seen any polished up, just raw. But I think he already has the 4 woods he is going to use. He might want to keep that one in mind should he need a replacement or additional set though.
 
I have some bloodwood, I don't know that it's Australian. It's very red in it's raw form and toxic as all get out. The wood store told me once anything wood that has red in it, wear a respirator. It usually don't last long with me, hard to whittle and checker wearing a space suit ya know.

When I first started making grips I worked so much Coco Bolo that the lines in my hands were red, the ring around the collar was red, I was literally sweating red. Felt pretty poorly a few times, hands kind of festered up, blistered. Hasn't been an isue of late. Mix and match and don't work quite so many anymore.
 
Yes ndog, Ilex is more or less a weed but if you get high quality kiln dried turning blanks it is almost pure white.

I had considered bloodwood but decided to go with cocobolo instead because as far as I can tell it is a darker red and that is what I am going for.

As far as scientific names go I really don't need them, I only posted them by those names because I am at work for 72 hours and am very bored. For those of you who do not know and are too lazy to look them up Diospyros Crassiflora is Black Ebony, Dalbergia Retusa is Cocobolo, Peltogyne is Purpleheart, and Ilex is Holly. So I am going with black, red, purple, and white for the 4 different karambits.
 
Oh cool. I knew the Holly name, but I did NOT know that if it is treated properly it is white. Only time I have seen it is when it is on that damn prickly leaves in my back yard As NDog implies I consider it an annoying painful weed and then it looks a bit greenish actually.

72 hours? YUCK! reminds me of working for the Dept of Defense in the 80s
 
LOL should have guessed. Not like private companies can even ask you to work those hours. Heck, They probably couldn't even allow it if you wanted to. There is probably 100 Federal and at least 10 times as many State laws against that sort of thing LOL. Air Force in Anchorage... isn't that Elmendorf Air Force Base?? Home of NORAD Alaska? I was near there TDY at Ft Richardson and in the Visiting Officers Quarters there were a couple guys TDY at NORAD at Elmendorf. We used to chat in the evenings about whether it would kinda suck to live there full time or if it would be really cool. I never did make up my mind LOL.
 
Yes it is Elmendorf but it is JBER now (Joint Base Elmendorf Richardson) and actually the only reason I am working these hours right now is because I am on a several month rotation working for NORAD, normally my work days are 14-16 hours long. As far as living in Alaska I love it, there is never a shortage of things to do outdoors here and I love the weather and day/night cycles.
 
Ah, So the Joint Base thing struck up there too. JBLM here in Wa is another of those messes. Don't really understand the point. Supposedly they save money, but I don't see how. Same everything that used to be there, just a new HQ unit (made up of the same soldiers that used to do the job before they changed the unit)

Yeah, The 20 hour days/nights at the extremes was what we always kind of wondered about. As far as the outdoor activity. Yeah that was awesome. I was there in the spring when it was beautiful weather and it was incredible.
 
Well here is the final drawing... the damascus billets are at a local knife company to have the blanks cut since that is the one thing I do not have the tools for.

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Good news though for Bawanna and ndoghouse, I had ordered material to make 4 of them and the billets I got for the same price where 5 inches longer which will let me make 6. So now even if I screw one of them up I will have enough left at the end to sell a few of them. Unfortunately I have to order a new Ebony blank because the one I order was 2x2x12" and the one I got was 1x1x12" :mad:

I will post the 6 karambit blanks when I get them back in a few days.
 

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Thats cool half! Thanks kindly for considering me one this. Very nice design and id definitely be interested. If the ebony dont work out i have some whitetail stag, zebrawood and some really beautiful stabilized redwood burl ill share with you. Ebony on damascus would look great tho id have to admit and so would stag. I had some of this redwood I planned to use for some kitchen knives but I broke the knife and its scrap now.
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Ive already cut it up into slabs but it might still fit? Ill scale out your drawing and see if it may work. The zebra wood ive had for about thirty years but it has never been stabilized. Using the one inch hole size for reference looks like it would be perfect size for my hands. Cant wait to see the blanks!
 
Can't see my keyboard, my dress is blown up in my eyes, quite a few for any passers by I'm sure!

I'd be tickled pink with just the blank I can do the handle part. I'd semi forgotten this whole deal but I bet I don't forget again.

I was just struck with the kerambit fever again just the other day.

I'm diggin this.
 
Your a mind reader ain't ya Mr. Tall. I'm still hankering for an original bawanna bowie with stag too. Just afraid to do the one I got, it's so perfect I don't want to mess with it. I might ask auntie for one without a handle. She said before she thought they could do that.

I should clarify too when I say blank I'd need all done, I don't know nothing about sharpening or tempering or much about metal.
 
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