Here's a knife I made for a banquet in Atlanta when the Blade Show gets going.
It's a twisted Ws blade with a stag handle and wrought iron fittings.
There are two ways of going about putting a stag-handled knife together.
You either fit the stag to the knife, which, since stag tapers are mostly non-symmetrical, requires one to remove portions of the taper to fit the knife.
Or, you build the knife to fit the stag taper, leaving the taper intact. This way may have portions of the knife irregular and "organic".
This was built somewhere in the middle. I did have to remove just a tiny bit of stag on the passenger side so as not to be sticking way out from the guard.
And since the stag face is not symmetrically round/oval, the guard is not equally balanced from side to side.
But it is these things that make these type of knives one-of-a-kind.
And building one of these in a take-down fashion is something I call the "Stag Ballet" - it can be a real 'dance' around the work shop getting all surfaces mated perfectly.
Doing one of these makes putting together a take-down wood handle knife like child's play.
Regardless, all I need to do now is hot-blue the Damascus and run it over to Scott Roush for some better photography.
I hope some of you can make it to Atlanta.