Really cool dagger pommel

[Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith]

I have a friend who is a gold buyer.He regular brings me neat non-gold things that are pried off gold things. They are only interested in melting the gold.

Today I received a small parcel in the mail from him. It has a carved ivory skull, about 7/8' high and 5/8" wide. I am pretty sure it is carved from a walrus tooth. The accuracy and detail is excellent (except the number of teeth is only 20). I am going to build a damascus gamblers dagger for it and use it as the pommel. I will drill out the bottom and put in a threaded insert for the tang end. Sterling and gold fittings will finish it out.
I'll probably make a WIP while doing it. It is a little tight timewise, but I would love to have it for Harrisonburg.

 

[tryppyr]

Sweet! Love to see how that turns out.

 

[Hengelo_77]

yep, me too!

 

[Fish30114]

Will the teeth/face point downward towards the blade edge, or will you face them up toward the spine of the blade? Should be pretty cool!

 

[SBuzek]

That is cool.

 

[Frank Niro]

Yes, please, Stacy !
Frank

 

[Jonathans]

Almost looks like a netsuke carving. Awesome.

 

[Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith]

I forged a 4" dagger blade from damascus this weekend. I hardened it,and have the final sanding to do.

I have been working on the layout and have several different handle builds.
All have the skull as the pommel. I will probably do a yellow gold diamond shape inlay escutcheon plate with my makers mark on one side of the handle, and a plate with a diamond inlay on the other side. The teeth will face the edge as I plan it now.

The options are:
A twisted gold wire wrapped handle.
A yellow gold frame handle with presentation MOP and a diamond in the center of each scale.
A mokume frame handle with Gabon ebony in the frame.
A fluted Gabon ebony handle with a gold ferrule and pommel cap, twisted gold wire on the flute ridges.
A narwhal handle with gold fittings.

So far, the most appealing are:
The twisted wire wrap - simple to do, but really impressive.
The mokume frame handle with either MOP or ebony - because I can ... complex and rarely seen.
Narwhale and gold - what's more to say, it is the top of the top.

My concerns with the narwhale and the fluted handle is how well the skull will fit with the twists. Probably fine, but I will have to do some visual tests.

 

[Drew Riley]

Very nice. I'd love to see a WIP as well.

 

[Richard338]

I'm doing a pair of daggers right now with African Blackwood (I thought about Gabon ebony) fluted and twisted gold on the ridges.
There is still plenty of time for me to screw something up, but the handles look spectacular.

 

[Fish30114]

Man oh man, those sound awesome Stacy, I was all in for the Mokume framed Ebony, but Narwhale?! All I could say to that is OMG--I have never ever even seen Narwhale tusk as an available material to purchase--seems almost like Unicorn horn!

Sounds like a cool build and I'll be looking out for sure.

 

[Hengelo_77]

my vote would be for:
A fluted Gabon ebony handle with a gold ferrule and pommel cap, twisted gold wire on the flute ridges.

As the black will set off the ivory skull the most.

 

[Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith]

It is down to narwhale vs Gabon right now.

I will turn the basic form for the ebony handle on the lathe this weekend to see how it looks with the skull sitting on it.
I grabbed the narwhale piece last night, and am going to stick the skull on it today at work and just look at it for a while.

I decided to keep the mokume idea for a larger knife, as the weight wouldn't work right with this small sleek dagger.
I decided the MOP for a flatter knife.
I decided to do the gold wrapped handle on a similar size r with a gemstone pommel.

I have decided to make a concealed arm sheath for the dagger, to go along with the gambler's theme. I will use garment grade rayskin ( tanned and soft) for the outer part, and soft pigskin for the arm-side lining.

I made a "garter sheath" that was a sheath built into a garter belt. It was lined in mink fur for a small dagger with a ladies theme. It was done in pink ivory burl with a hearts pattern damascus. It was worn by a bride in a renaissance wedding. We all saw a lot of her thighs and surrounding real estate, as she would hike up her wedding dress about every five minutes to show the dagger off. Since all she was wearing a bustier body suit (the bottom was basically a thong), the big skirt, and the garter/sheath belt connected to net stockings, we saw a lot!