Stainless Boot

I had to re-handle this using pins. Epoxy does not really stick to stainless, but the pins keep the scales on. I'm not sure if this is going into the working knives collection. It's difficult to sharpen, but it won't rust and can open letters and clean fingernails. Which is to say, I really like damascus. Trouble is, I can buy a finished knife from Charlton for not much more than the blank, which is not only a valuable collectable, but is much better made than I can possibly do. Maybe one or two of each...

Stainless - No Cigar

I thought it turned out pretty well, considering.  The epoxy doesn't really hold, even though I roughed up the tang. I had to re-glue one side and the other is loose at the butt. Oh, well.  It also looks sort of ugly. I guess I could have done better.  If I have to, I bought two cobalt 1/8th bits, and I could try to pin it, but I would really just start over.  Something ain't right with the front of the handle. (It does look better in person.)

The wood is a slightly different type of South American hardwood from shipping crates. It's a little softer than the other I was using and doesn't shine up as nice. I'm deducting 4 points for minor blemishes, 4 points for weak glue and 4 more for general ugliness: make it an 88/100.

The End of Act 1

I need to get new belts and my friend said he would give me a small belt sander, so I'm not grinding any metal right now, but worn belts work pretty well on wood, especially the #80/100 grit is much more forgiving. I managed to do most of this with the coarse belt. It's the same unknown wood I'm using for scales; this was a roughly wedge shaped piece of waste wood. Cut the kerf with the edge of the sander and used a lot of my new-found inner radius "talent".

Good practice, plus I'll be set if I get any letters on the other side of the metal detectors.

My friend gave me two sheathe knives that had gotten rusty on one side from being in the sheathes for at least twenty years. One is a big fat Pakistani bowie that's thick enough to grind the rust off, which I'm in the process of.  I'll post photos when I'm done.  This one is kind of cool: tight stag handle, hard, thin and very flexible blade and only light rust, which I'm taking off by hand because the blade is so thin. Too bad it looks like a bread knife, but it would be quel formidable in a between the ribs application.  Think I'll stick with bread.

My next project, which I didn't put handles on before because it's too hard to drill stainless. But now that the epoxy only knives are holding up well, I'm just going to glue it and grind it. Then I have the last damascus blank, that I still haven't figured out how to handle.

The first four Damascus USA knives, done for now.  Time to order more steel.