Thanks Stovey.

The sheath is made of saddle leather. Have a mate who is a saddler and the leather is an off-cut from him. I decided to add the fringe to the sheath to make it look a little different and not just a plain sheath. The sheath is entirely hand sewn as well.

The knife takes a nice edge and is razor sharp...should hold it well too. The blade is strong enough to withstand a beating, which all good camp knives should.

The handle is two scales of an good aussie hardwood..Jarrah...which I believe is a distant relative of the Californian Redwood. It is as hard a wood as I have encounter anywhere. I also plaited a wrist strap from light tan coloured para cord. Thought I had some pics of that but can't find them.

Cheers, Vince

I can almost see it now, cuttin' bacon one minute, shaving with it the next.

Now THAT'S a knife.

Vince wrote:

OK...have started a new "project". I decided to plan this one from the start rather than "feel it" as the job progressed. Hand drew the plan: The start. Rough shaping on the grinder: More to follow OVER. Cheers, Vince

OK...a bit more on this "project"

I have put a lot more work into the blade and have pretty much shaped the handle scales...although the "plan" has evolved as it progressed.

The handle scales are a little thicker than I originally envisaged, the reason for that being they feel pretty good in my hand, and I don't have an overly large hand...so, I thought, leave them a little bigger. The timber in the handle is a mix of Aussie timbers, she-oak (the white wood) and Jarrah (the darker wood).

I also decided to inlay a piece of the white wood...Aussie she oak...around the end of the tang that shows in the top of the handle. Thought it might add a little bit of character.

I have almost finished polishing up the blade, just a liitle more to do and it is finished. I had planned on bluing the blade with cold blue, but after looking at it all nice and shiny, I thought, no, it looks good just polished, so it will stay silver.

Below are a couple of progress pics.

Cheers, Vince

Vince, nice work! The knife has shaped up nicely.

Yep...its getting there Slim...not much more to do now. Should have it finished in the next day or so

Cheers, Vince

Vince wrote:

Should have it finished in the next day or so

Vince, you are efficient! My projects take months minimum, often years!

OOOOooooo Nice Vince!! I like that blade shape too. With the shape as it is, I bet it would be a good balance for throwing. It sort of has a drop to it, like it's ready for flight. You really did some laborious work on the metal, came out nice! But I'm very into wood and I wanna see that handle sanded and polished......hurry up!!


Suz

Well...getting right on top of it now. All I need do is sharpen the blade...which I'm doing sitting here in front of the computer.

Maybe I'm a little biased, but I rather think this knife has turned out quite good...I like the flowing lines and it is also functional. It has plenty of strength and should hold a nice edge.

The small "circle" in the centre of the white wood is where I decided to fit an internal pin to secure the pieces. Once I had epoxied the pin in place I hand carved two small plugs and glued them into the holes. I knew I could never hide them completely, but they don't look too bad.

Anyway, without further ado...

Pre sharpening (the blade is highly polished as can be seen by the reflection of the wood grain, and the small chip, in my table):



Two coats of Linseed Oil well rubbed into the wood...only two more coats to go



Four coats of Linseed...ready for sharpening.



Not sure if I will make a scabbard to go with this one...don't have any suitable leather at the moment, sooooo....now I gotta have a think about what style and shape my next one will take.

Cheers, Vince

OH Very Well Done Vince!! I swear it's a thrower, but don't, might mess it up.

Suz

Thank Suz...a bit too heavy for a thrower mate...but then again...wouldn't matter which end hit ya...it would do you a mischief.

Cheers, Vince

Got a bit bored this afternoon, had a little spare leather, so I decided to make a scabbard for the latest knife I made.

The Scabbard or Sheath



Knife in the Scabbard



The "sliding" belt loop arrangement I figured out...will take up to a 4" belt; will also hold nice and snug on a smaller belt.



All stitching is hand done with a sewing awl. Not really difficult, but a bit hard on the hands sometimes. The blade looks a bit "grotty", but it is actually coated with Lanoguard, so it is still nice and shiny under there. I might "cold" blue it, what do ya reckon?

Oh well...might throw it onto EBay now and see what I can get for it...hopefully enough to buy some more materials to make another one or two knives.

Cheers, Vince

Looks good Vince

great job mate .

Nice work Vince!

Well...I decided to make another knife.

Really got stuck into this one and did what I feel is a good job, in fact I reckon that this one is the best I've made yet.

The basic design is loosely based on a "Bear Grylls" pattern knife, made from a metal working file, and is very strong. The blade is 4 inches long and 1 inch wide and 3/16 inch thick...should stand up to hard work. I heat treated and annealed the blade and it takes a magnificently sharp edge. I hand finished the blade with 320 then 800 grit wet and dry to give it a slightly satin finish, then cold blued all the metal parts.

The handle is made from an Aussie hardwood, Jarrah, and I hand rubbed about 10 coats of Jarrah Oil into it and finished off with a hand rubbed wax finish. I stumbled onto a shop that sells brass tubing and that is what I used to secure the handle scales.

The scabbard is a close copy of the Bear Grylls scabbard and is hand sewn. I included a holder for a fire starting flint and striker. I also incorporated a 550 paracord wrist strap woven in a "snake knot" pattern using black and tan paracord and a sliding Turk's Head knot in tan.

All in all, I am very happy with the end result...as I said, the best yet. This is a surprise gift for a mate and I think he will be happy with it as a camp knife.

Cheers, Vince