Back to the workbench

I have a couple of pieces I'm hoping to move fairly quickly. I have some bills to pay and I want to pick up a couple of things before this year's season hits full swing. So I cut out and did the base profiles on a few knives that I'm going to be offer up for sale shortly.


They are ready for heat treat, which I hope to do this weekend. After that, they'll be scaled up and have leather sheaths made for them. I was given a couple pieces of ebony and holly from Mark of OlliN swords to play with so I'm thinking that two of them will have those as grips. The other two are up in the air. I'm also being tempted to do a wood sheath for the Mary Rose knife (one with the lobed handle and short blade at the top). There were a couple of fish shaped sheaths found on the wreck, and it would be a nice addition to a piece already based off of that find.

Olive knife, or don't get cocky with wood

I've done a few knives now, I think more than a dozen. I've worked with paduak, walnut, oak, ash, and a few others. When my friend Mark showed me a piece of olive wood in a bargain bin at the local Woodcrafter I went for it. I then proceeded to become that wood's b!@#$.

Olive has beautiful grain, a lovely warm color, amazing feel when polished up and amazing smell. It is gorgeous. It works by hand pretty well, and I now know why all the sources I have since found for it are in the turning sections of wood stores and online catalogs. That beautiful grain makes cutting the stuff into scales for a scale tang knife interesting. I had a customer who wanted a knife with an Italian feel. My wife suggested I use the Olive, and I thought perfect! This is what happened four times, including after I had it scaled and polished up ready to go out for a deadline.


As you can see the wood cracked. A lot. It split on the grain very easily. After much swearing, running out to buy another block of wood, and throwing one of the broken scales violently in my garage (its the one NOT pictured), I got it to work. By cutting the scales thicker than I normally would and trimming down after they had been mounted I was able to get a clean and stable piece on the knife. After sanding and polishing this stuff looks gorgeous. Mark was right, it cleans up brilliantly. The grain stands out and it is warm and soft to the touch.

Here's the final product:

With flash-


and without -


Sheath is black veg tan and is going out the door tomorrow, in time for the customer's needs.

16th Century German Knife - Finished, with Sheath

Finished up the clean up on the German knife and added a sheath. Sheath is made from a double layer of 2-3 oz oak tanned leather, stitched with waxed linen thread. I dyed it using Tandy Leather's Mahogony oil based dye and buffed out with some beeswax. As much as I hate to I'm going to be putting this one up for sale shortly on a couple of forums. Cost is going to be $65 shipping included to the US.

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.