What's happening with my knife making?

Sharp eyed readers might have noticed that I haven't blogged much about knives & knife making recently...;-)

Well, I am still making knives, but they tend to be repeats of what I have done before, and I think it would be boring for everyone, including me, to write about things I have already done.

Having said that, I have a few ideas twirling in my mind and it's just a question of finding the time to apply them.

I also want to have a go at tutorial videos on knife making, and perhaps wood carving too, but I am not very savvy on the technology of film making, so I am practising first to get something that does not look like a dog's dinner, after it's gone throught the dog....

Variety is the spice of life, so they say. I'll continue to post on various other things too, leather work, more horn making, knife making, and try to keep it interesting.

My new hicking stick

Ever since I had torn tendons in my foot, I have been using a stick of some sort. Generally my foot does no cause me too much problems, but sometimes it can get quite painful still. Besides, I have come to enjoy having a good stick with me, as they are really quite useful. I used the aluminium poles to start with but they are not something you can like very  much, so I ended up making  a variety of hicking sticks. This one is my latest creation.
The stick itself is Hickory about 3/4" diameter and 48" long, left over piece from a bow I made some while back. The handle is leather and incorporate a miniature compass.

The lanyard is a 4 strand leather sennit (plait) stained, passed through the hole in the stick, each end of the lanyard separated into 2 and joinded together to form the loop. The join is covered by a leather turk's head knot. It should have been 3 strand turk's, but ended up 2 strands, because I ran out of leather lace!

I turned a wooden ball, epoxied the compass in place on top and covered it in leather. I should really have recessed the compass into the ball, and so had to add the compass/start leather design to recess the compass fully. The star is tacked into place with proper brass pins. (not brassed steel pins!) And I think it looks nicer now thant what I had planned in the first place.

It's maybe on the slightly heavier side, but that was quite a nice project as I enjoy working with leather; this stick is now my new favourite!

The powder horn is finished

The powder horn  I have been working on the past few days is finished. At least, it's gone as far as I want it to go. When is something "finished"?  I could fuss over it and do some more work but I think it would be over doing it.

So here it is.

 

I have found the Mahogany I used for the butt plug to be very porous, so I warmed up the wood, using a heat gun, and melted some beeswax  onto the plug. With the heat, it was readily absorbed into the wood, in the same way leather soaks up beeswax, plugging up the pores. I have carved a simple design engrailment at the start of the neck, and continued the 6 sided design on the other side of the neck rings, and deepened the groove between the rings to accomodate the leather strap.

The strap itself is a 4 strand plait.  To attache the plug,  I secured it to the horn with a small amount of wood glue, followed by 4 wood pins.

All in all, I am very happy with the result of my first attempt,  and, of course, I am now planning the next one...

Making a powder horn. Part 4

Only a little work done the past couple of days. I was waiting for the spout to arrive. Here is the horn with the spout in place. It's 12 3/4" long along the outside curve. There is a little more shaping of the tip of the horn to do, then some more sanding/scrapping/sanding.

Making a powder horn. Part 3

A bit more work done on the horn today. I cut off the tip, drilled the hole, and decided to shape the neck in an hexagonal shape. With hindsight, I think an octogon would have been better than hexagonal.  I need to do some more scrapping and fine sanding, and I'll wait to finish the tip to receive the brass fitting I'm going to use.

Making a powder horn. Part 2

I've done a bit more work on the powder horn today, namely, rasping, filing, sanding, scrapping, then more sanding of the horn. The surface was quite rough and irregular, with a lot of scratches etc.

I made this small bench with the central post, it makes it easier to hold and file the horn.

And much easier to wet sand it too!

 The colour has changedand the pattern has come out beautifully.

Making a powder horn

I have started to make a powder horn for someone  who's into muzzleloaders. It's going to be a simple one as I was asked not to "go overboard" with it!!

So, here are a couple of pictures of what I have done so far. I have rounded the end of the horn and flattened it. To achieve a nice round end, I made a soft wood, cone plug to round the horn with, with the careful use of a heat gun; I say careful because I didn't want to burn the horn itself. As it is, the plug got a bit singed!

It is a fairly small horn I am using, so, to give the horn a bit more storage space for the powder, I am making  a hollowed domed "butt plug", which will also add a couple of inches in length to the horn. Overall it's going to be about 12" long.

That's it so far. I am keeping the horn on the cone until I have cleaned it up and fitted the butt plug, as I am not sure if the horn would revert to its original shape unsupported.

I finished the domed plug on the lather this afternoon. Here are some pictures of it.

Playing with my new toy!

Well, I have gone all modern and bought a Sony Handycam. This is the first short film I have made with it. It's a bit amateurish of course, but I have learned a lot from making it, not least that a tripod will be very useful... Due to the bright sunshine, I could hardly see what was on the screen while taking the pictures, so it has not turned out too badly.

I am now waiting for my invitation to the Cannes Festival!

Patrick's story

"The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated"

Mahatma Gandhi

How sad to see what some humans can do.

Eagle Goes Dancing blog

I stumbled upon this blog today. Well worth a visit and a read in my view.
Native American, living history interpretation, self sufficiency and primitive skills.

 Eagle Goes Dancing