Get A Handle On - Restoration

I always think of myself as being 'not all that' at handy crafts so it was a pleasant surprise to see how easy some of them can be. On Friday The Fat Controller gave me a shed he'd found while hiking in the highlands of Scotland. Regular readers will know that BoB brought round a whole box full of knives and assorted kit from our folks place.Lying unloved at the bottom of the box was the knife pictured above. It's handle a particularly unconvincing piece of faux antler (note the 'charming' depiction of a stag!). The blade had several different grinds, in parts flat,and convex, is also pretty soft steel. It was the kind of knife given to lads as a first sheath knife. The sheath itself was pretty cruddy, the leather un-nourished and the stitching failing or failed.
A few hours later and it a whole new story!
Antler is much easier to work than it looks at first sight. I cut off the bottom left tine with a hacksaw, used the side of an angle grinder blade to sand the surface that meets the finger guard, trued it with an orbital sander. It stinks! Like burning fingernails!! Drilled the first hole with 4mm wood bit in a powered screw driver. Making the hole into a slot to take the blades tang looked difficult, but once I'd convex'd the point of a pig-sticker (you know a spike on a handle - don't know its real name) into a mini blade - it was surprisingly easy to get the recess the right size and shape.
I used two-part glue to set the blade to the tine.
The sheath wasn't in good shape so I roughed off any remaining finish and stained it blue, did some lacklustre back stitching, stained it again to cover up the crappy stitching, and using the cooker hob as a heat source melted four coats of boot wax into the leather.I left the retaining strap in the original colour, took out two rivets from the top of the sheath and replaced them with hollow rivets so the knife can be worn dangling as a 'necker'. All it needs now is a boot lace to hang it from.
Now if I could just get on with that Kuksa.

Hope your weekend was as productive for you
Thanks for reading
SBW

Witch Blades? Nice Work If You Can Get It!

As you know I usually shy away from the 'draw queen' end of the knife making world.
But rules as they say are made to be bent until they're broken.
Having done a bit of school boy forge work myself in the past, I'm a huge admirer of the work these guys do, but fear of loss or damage, and the kind of money that they have to charge for the time they put in, stops me from buying this kind of tool.

Somewhere along the way, surfing the internet, I came across witchblades where the design ethic sits so perfectly between 'artisan recycler' and the 'serious craftsman' that I thought I'd share it with you.
The top half of the blade is from an old railroad spike and the cutting edge is made from a Damascus steel that the maker Rik Palm beat, twisted, and wielded himself.
Rik has published some pictures of the process here and some excellent pictures of what it takes to make Damascus here.Have a look at the gallery where there are too many neat design ideas to shake a stick at. I particularly like the maggot knife and this totally authentic Nessmuk, with it's blade forged from an old file. Without wishing to sound like some new age loon claiming to 'channel' the spirit of bushcraft's grand old man of letters, I reckon it's pretty much what the old chap would have been looking at when he did those drawings of his perfect camp knife.

Thanks for reading
Bushwacker