- Joined
- Mar 29, 2007
- Messages
- 5,846
This was a fun order. I sometimes get some scrap pieces of mammoth ivory, and the customer wanted an ivory handle sgian dubh.
At first I was going for high polish full mirror on everything, but my box turned up a bark piece that would work for the outboard scale.
So I went with a finer finish on the high convex grind (you have to do those by hand, you can rough it a bit on a belt, but it really takes a lot of hand work), leaving a polished forge pattern on the remaining blade flats.
The grind is done to 2000 grit by hand, same on the flats, but I started at 400 for cleanup, instead of removing the pattern with 120 grit.
This is "aged" looking ivory, all cracks in the original pieces filled with CA and then touched up if needed while shaping. Finished with an overnight mineral oil soak instead of the buffed CA finish I've tried before. It's a bit darker but looks like what it is, 16,000 to 40,000 year old ivory.
Blade length is 4 3/8 on an 8 3/8 overall knife. 1080 steel, hollow stainless pins. I used the hollow pins for a couple reasons. Large stainless or bronze pins would have too much clash with the bark, and a bright copper/stainless mosaic would be clashing with the general aesthetic (IMHO)- the tubing sort of goes null to the eyes.
At first I was going for high polish full mirror on everything, but my box turned up a bark piece that would work for the outboard scale.
So I went with a finer finish on the high convex grind (you have to do those by hand, you can rough it a bit on a belt, but it really takes a lot of hand work), leaving a polished forge pattern on the remaining blade flats.
The grind is done to 2000 grit by hand, same on the flats, but I started at 400 for cleanup, instead of removing the pattern with 120 grit.
This is "aged" looking ivory, all cracks in the original pieces filled with CA and then touched up if needed while shaping. Finished with an overnight mineral oil soak instead of the buffed CA finish I've tried before. It's a bit darker but looks like what it is, 16,000 to 40,000 year old ivory.
Blade length is 4 3/8 on an 8 3/8 overall knife. 1080 steel, hollow stainless pins. I used the hollow pins for a couple reasons. Large stainless or bronze pins would have too much clash with the bark, and a bright copper/stainless mosaic would be clashing with the general aesthetic (IMHO)- the tubing sort of goes null to the eyes.
