16th Century German Knife - It's a Mystery

When looking for knife images, I stumbled across a mid 16th century German knife that I really liked. It had a clip point and a nice long profile. I promptly have lost the picture of the original, but I did my best to remember the shape. I have no idea where the image is and I have yet to be able to find it in any of my files and in my search-fu of the intarnets. Mystery part one.

This past spring I attended the Prairie du Chein rendezvous and bought a set of red wood scales. I'm pretty sure the purveyor of the store said they were bloodwood, but the label that was on the wood had vanished into thin air so I can't be sure. Mystery part two.


No matter what it actually is, I like it. The wood has an amazing color to it. Deep and bright, the red stands out, especially after the light coat of Danish oil on it. I chose copper rivets to pop through the wood color and their bright nature really stands out. The fact that the blade has a clip point to it makes it different from anything else I have made so far. I really like how this one has turned out. The pictures don't do the wood justice, I find it simply stunning.


All the pieces of the puzzle ended up making this one heck of a knife. I'll be doing a sheath for it as well, just got to figure out what color to dye the leather now. Maybe I'll just mix a bunch of colors together and see what happens.