My nephew had been asking me to make him a knife with an antler handle, and he sent me some pictures of some Bowie knives so I'd know what he was talking about. This was a little out of my comfort zone. I usually do fully tang knives with scales. But this time I decided to try a through tang knife with a butt cap and a pommel nut. I saw some videos of people (Kyle Royer especially) making take-down knives by bedding the tang in epoxy, so I gave that a shot, too.
The only thing I couldn't do was make the pommel nut since I didn't have a lathe. I tried doing it with a drill and a belt sander, but I just couldn't make it work. But I found these bronze cap nuts on Amazon, and they look good and work just fine, so I used those.
I also wanted to use Birch Casey's Plumb Brown on the guard and butt cap. I couldn't get the browning to look even even after five rounds. I'm okay with the rustic look, though, and my nephew was pretty pleased with the knife.
Oh, I also had a really difficult time getting that Hamon line to look good. I tried all kinds of things and finally quit when I arrived at this.
What a frustrating knife this was! But it was still fun to make.
Topic: A knife for my nephew (Read 2386 times)
