Very nice stuff Michael ! Top shelf material all the way around to go along with the Workmanship :thumbup: Tell us about working with the Tooth .
This knife is very special because of some reasons that I cant say right now. It is a gift and the person who is to recieve it didnt get it yet, so it was an honor to be able to make this one.
How do I work the tooth?
You have to work it slow and have alot of superglue on hand. Grind for a minute, super glue and let dry for an hour. If there is a big gap it may have to dry over night. This knife doesnt have dovetailed bolster so it wasnt to bad. Dovetailed slabs are even more tedious because you have to go very slow. Even if the tooth is stabilized there will ALWAYS be some filling that needs to be done.
Shaping tooth after everything is epoxied is GREAT! Use a 36 grit to rough shape and then progresivly finer grits to finish. I believe I had about 6 hours total of hand sanding on this knife. Thats about 1 to 1 1/2 hours longer than I normally have on a knife made of wood or stag. I started at 320 and went to 2500 grit. I bet i gont have more than 30 seconds of buffing on this knife and that was with a loose buff and pink no scratch compound.
I used the rotary platten to shape the handle on this one and it worked fantastic! Rob deserves a metal for making those things. MR. Fitzgerald was kind enough to lend me his to try out and Im hoping he will forget that he lent it to me so I wont have to buy my own
Tooth can be a pain in the ass but I think the end result is worth it.
Oh, there are 3 blind pins in the bolster and 2 blind pins in the handle in addition to the exposed pin and the thong hole tube.. The exposed pin is damascus but it didnt show to well in the pic.
Thanks everyone for all, the comments.