First attempt(s) at wooden knife scales

[JAB]

Some of you may or may not remember that a couple of months ago I posted about a project I did in which I re-purposed a blade from an Old Hickory I had that was losing its wooden scales by giving it a handle made from a deer leg bone.  I liked the way it turned out but it mostly 'looks nice' and might not be practical for frequent carry and use.  I decided that I want to do a couple of knives that could spend time on my belt.  This post is about the first (and only) one, so far.

 

I have a Russell Green River Dadley style knife that I bought at a historical day and was impressed by the carbon steel used so I thought that for my first one I would order a kit that included one of their blades of a different style.  I ordered this kit from Track of the Wolf and this is what came with it:

 

 

One thing that concerned me was the complete and total lack of a finger guard or any, other 'grip assisting' features of the blade.  Even the Dadley style blade they make has a little of what I guess you could call 'proto-jimping'.  I realize that settlers, trappers, pioneers and mountain men used knives like that for years but I also know me - I'd cut the crap out of my hand if I tried to use such a knife on a regular basis, especially with wet, slick hands or so on.  To hopefully help prevent such personal injury, I modded it by adding a finger groove (using the Dremel and grinding stone) and some jimping (with the Dremel and a cut-off wheel):

 

 

 

The wood for the scales that came with the kit was, as you can see in the first pic some nice curly maple with lots of figure.  So, I marked and drilled holes for the pins, glued the wood to the blade handle and got to work shaping the handle, mostly by hand with just a little help from the Dremel and a sanding wheel.  After several hours of work with a pocket knife and sandpaper, I had what I felt was a nice looking handle.  It was then time to put the pins in - unfortunately.  The first pin went in smoothly.  The second one got about halfway in and bent.  I couldn't get it to go all the way in and I couldn't get it out.  After prying, pulling and a lot of cussing, I decided that my only choice was to cut the head off of the pin with the Dremel and a cut-off wheel.  Unfortunately, there was not enough space between the head of the pin and the handle so that meant cutting a gouge out of the side of the handle scale, effectively ruining it.  The sad thing was that by that point I had realized that the pins weren't even necessary as the small amount of 527 glue I had used to temporarily hold the scales on had held up through the entire shaping process and would have been enough.  Oh, well, at least I learned a valuable lesson.  From now on if I order a kit and it comes with those pins I plan to carefully but immediately remove them from the kit, gently open the back door and proceed to sling the damned things just as far as I can.  If I feel I need extra support for a future handle I will use Chicago screws.  Otherwise, I will go with just the glue or maybe some thin, decorative pins like a lot of folks use.

 

So, it was back to the start.  I have a strip of wood that I bought (at Home Depot, iirc) to make knife scales.  It is also maple but is much more plain and isn't as nice as the curly maple that came with the kit but it was what I had so I cut a couple of pieces off of it, glued them on to the handle and began, again.  This time, however, rather than spending hours whittling away at the scales, I decided to set up and use my 1 inch Harbor Freight belt sander for the first time.  That was one of the best ideas I have had as it took about twenty minutes with it to do what it had taken hours to do with my pocket knife - and the end results looked better.  Honestly, being a fan of wood grain/pattern I think I prefer the smooth, unblemished look of the scales unbroken by pins, anyhow.  Yet another reason not to use them in the future as long as the glue, alone, holds up over time (and I suspect it will.)  So, after shaping with the sander, cutting out the finger groove with the Dremel and smoothing with various grits of sandpaper, I rubbed the handle with a little olive oil.  This is how it looked at that point:

 

 

Now it was time to turn a little more attention to the blade, itself.  It was pretty sharp out of the box but as you can probably see in the above pic the edge was fairly 'shallow'.  I reprofiled it to give it a more 'beveled' edge and now have a couple of bald spots on my arms from testing to see if it was shaving sharp.  I also decided that the bright, shiny finish had to go so I forced a patina.  I wanted something different than just an even patina, though.  I wanted the blade to have kind of a 'mottled' look like some of my older carbon steel knives.  I used mustard to force the patina and thought, "I wonder what adding salt would do."  So after putting a thin coating of mustard on the blade I then put on a solid layer of salt (table salt, right out of the shaker.)  I let that sit for about half an hour and then, just out of curiosity, I passed the flame of a disposable lighter under each side of the blade until all the salt 'charred' and turned black.  Not enough to really heat the blade (and mess with the tempering), just enough to char the salt.  I let that sit a few, more minutes then rinsed it off with apple cider vinegar.  I then washed it with dish soap and water and I am really pleased with the results.  When the patina was done, I ran the edge over my whetstone a few times so that it would stand out.  I also rubbed a little more olive oil into the handle and, once that was absorbed and pretty much dried, I rubbed it with a little beeswax and buffed it out with a paper towel.

 

Finally, I decided that if it was going to be a belt knife then I really needed a way to carry it on my belt.  To that end, I banged out a quick, simple sheath.  The sheath isn't perfect and I might end up having to make a new, slightly re-designed one but I did carry the knife in it all weekend and it works okay, for now.  I'll just have to see how it works long term.  So, here are a few pics showing the reprofiled edge, the patina and the sheath.  Some of the dark spots on the blade look like pitting in the pictures but they are not, the surfaces of the sides of the blade are smooth:

 

 

 

 

 

While this certainly isn't up to the 'professional grade' quality of Gran Torino's work and doesn't have the coolness factor of having forged the blade, myself like Spots and some others do, I am overall very happy with the resutls, especially being this is really my first effort with wood scales.  I think I will enjoy carrying and using this knife.  I don't think this will be my last, especially as I already have a few, other knife kits that have been languishing away waiting for me to get around to them.

 

There is one thing I am wondering and would like to have some opinions, just for curiosity's sake.  I wouldn't really call this a custom knife but as I modded the blade, made the handle and made the sheath do y'all think it would be fair to say that I now have created myself a 'semi-custom' setup or is that going too far?

Edited September 22, 2014 by JAB

[Tncobra]

Hey thats really nice.

Wish I possessed the skillz to make things. Im better suited to tearing up.

[rugerla1]

I really like it, great job!

[peejman]

Yep, dig the patina.  That really sets it off. 

[JAB]

Thanks, fellas!