Steps in collaboration with Ray Archer

SR_matt said:
is that blanket/sheet up in the first few pictures a blanket or is it a sheet of chainmaile?

cool looking knife, cant wait to see hot it finnishes out

good work on both of ya'lls parts
-matt
Click to expand...

It's the bedspread on our bed.
 
o ok, i couldnt tell if the camera jsut didnt pick up the detail or not, it looked like a sheet of chainmaille with a rather cool pattern in it.
-matt
 
I couldn't take it. I kept looking at the misaligned joint and decided to take it apart and fix it. I'll post pictures later. I drilled out all of the pins and drilled out the center of the back bolsters and used a punch to knock them off. I then put a file guide on the tulipwood and filed the longer one to match the shorter one. I've got a new back bolster epoxied on now. It should be cured in about 1 more hour. Then I'll drill it and then epoxy the other back bolster on. I hate it when I'm an idiot. Which means that I have a lot of hate (just kidding).
 
Here you can see that I have the back bolsters removed. I've attached a file guide so that I can file the tulipwood back and make the two sides of the handle match. To remove the old bolsters, I drilled out all 6 of the 1/16" pins. I then drilled a large hole in the centers of the bolsters, where I knew there were large holes in the tang. I used a 3/16" pin punch to knock them loose. They were really on good, and it took quite a few whacks to get them loose. I'm really glad I didn't split the tulipwood. You can see on one of the pictures that the tulipwood is not even. I'm really glad I fixed it!
 
I've now cut two new bolsters and epoxied them on. I wasn't happy with the thickness of the handle (way to heavy for a skinner), so I used my 1X42 belt sander and thinned them down. Which means that my black epoxy back fill is now gone on the front bolsters. After seeing how the tulipwood was going to look, it's probably for the best. I think aging the bolsters with cold blue to give a patina will really look nice with the tulipwood and will be a nice contrast to the jeweled blade.
 
Down the stretch! I've got the handle thinned the way I want now. I've very carefully shaped the corners. I like to do this by hand, instead of using power tools. I find it very easy to mess up a junction where the flat of the handle and the sides meet when using a belt sander or dremel. On this knife, I didn't want too much rounding of the corners anyhow. Just a slight breaking so that the handle feels good in the hand is what I was after. I sanded the entire handle down to 600 grit. I then use a Q-tip to very carefully apply the gun blue to the brass. I only do one surface at a time and watch it very carefully. The gun blue will begin to darken the brass. At first it turns a darker copper color. Sometimes I just stop it right there with a squirt of windex and a quick wipe with a lint free cloth. On this one, I was looking for some darker colors. If you leave it on too long though, the brass will turn an ugly black. It has to be stopped just at the right time. I was able to get some nice blues, purples, reds, yellows and brilliant copperish gold colors swirling on the brass. At this point I put three coats of teak oil on the handle and brass. Teak oil finishes to a hard finish that won't crack, chip or scratch very easily. It's a good finish for the brass and the tulipwood. After the teak oil, I put two coats of Johnsons Paste Wax on the handle.

The tulipwood looks fantastic. The reds and yellows of the tulipwood matched the reds and yellows in the aged bolsters very nicely. The colors on the bolster don't show up too well with my limited photographic skills, but they look great in person.
 
I also made a sheath for the knife. It's a pouch type. This is the first time I've tried my hand at tooling. I used 9 oz. vegetable tanned leather. I put a welt in it to protect the hand stitching. It's hand stitched with black thread. The tooling is a shell pattern around the outside edges of the front, with a basketweave in the center of the front side shell frame. I dyed the sheath a brownish/maroon color. Once it was dry, I put three coats of teak oil on the leather and two coats of Johnsons Paste Wax (same finish as for the knife handle). It's by far the best sheath that I've made.

I hope you've enjoyed this thread. Ray Archer and I will be putting our logos on the knife tomorrow (Sunday, April 15) at the Eugene Knife Show.

Scott (Ickie) Ickes
 
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