Trail of Tears Skinner

[Cloyde]

The knife design makes a good skinning knife with the point slim enough to use for capping. The handle is made from Desert Mesquite as apposed to the Tree verity found in the Texas area. The wood is hard and dense and after 100 years of growth may reach 6’ in high due to the lack of moisture is South east New Mexico. The tang is tapered and has a rope pattern that wraps from the bolster all the way around to the tip of the blade.
Blade is made from O-1 and is 5/32 Thick and 1 5/8” at the widest part. The OAL is 7” and cutting edge is 3 ½”.
The bolsters are dove tailed and made out of 316 Stainless steel
The sheath is 9-10 oz leather with Snakeskin inlay. The snakeskin is a bull snake (rattle snake hunting has been slow but did get 3 this week) The sheath is 1” thick at the thickest part. The pictures do not do the sheath justice. This is my lucky or unlucky 13th knife.
Thank you for looking and any advice is always welcome. Still working on the picture taking

 

[Phil Dwyer]

Sweeeet. Sure wish I could see it all better. The busy background texture of similar colors makes it even extra difficult to see. It might even be whats making your photo focusing hard to do.

How do you like working with the mesquite? I've been harvesting keawe and milling some up. Its Hawaii's mesquite and hard as nails.

Got any suggestions on where to find out more info about doing leather inlays? I got Chuck's Wild Rose sheath making video, but it doesn't get quite that far.

Thanks for sharing! All the best, Phil

 

[Cloyde]

I'll try and post some better pictures with a solid back ground. Thank's for the advise. I like the mesquite. I found that the root has alot more contrast. On the knife in the picture that you can not see, the grain changes 3 time in that short of distance where 3 roots twisted into one. To me mesquite looks alot like desert ironwood. I've not used ironwood as when I went to buy it the people selling the ironwood discourage me from purchasing it and said it would darken over time but mesquite looks like it hold its color in the what I've seen. This is my first inlay and I got the same video. I think the inlay adds so much that it was worth the effort but I have not found anymore information.
Thanks you for the reply,
Cloyde