Recent content by dkabat579

I always knew I had a 5-year-old's sense of humor but I'm surprise at how much I snickered at your title. I don't know about its availability but I've used black locust for a number of axe/tool handles and it's worked out pretty well. According to some sources I've seen it has almost the shock...

I was thinking of diluting the dye with something since it's alcohol based, do you think isopropyl could be used simply because its easier to come by than denatured ethanol (I have it under my sink even now)?

I started out following a tutorial on KnifeForums (http://www.knifeforums.com/forums/showtopic.php?tid/834660/) but changed the process up a little bit as I went along. The main thing is just to get a lot of practice. My first 4 or 5 sheaths didn't look very good but after that you really start...

Very nicely done, looks like it'll be a great bag. I've had something like that in mind for myself and I was wondering what you did to get the bottom and sides (that single u-shaped piece) to bend at the edges to meet the front and back. Did you wet it when you sewed it to get it to make that...

My Frosts 106 was the first non-kitchen knife I ever bought (not counting my Swiss Army Knife) and it still sees almost daily wood-carving use. The sheath I'd made for it, however, left a lot to be desired to I decided to make a new one and give my dutiful little knife the accessory it deserves...

I really like the look of those Saami belts but felt put off by all the little bits as they always looked a little "busy" to my eye. Your take is gorgeous though, everything I'd want with nothing I wouldn't. I may have to give one of these a go myself, what thickness leather did you use?

I did some more waxing to try and improve the color of the leather: The one on the bottom is an untreated sheath I made for my Frosts 106 a while back (it didn't turn out so well). Both come from the same shoulder and are the same thickness. Some leather, like the thinner material used for...

I've made a couple of knives before but none of them had really turned out that well. I wanted something I could carry around with me in the woods for carving on hikes. The blade is a 95mm Polar set in curly birch with a brass bolster and the sheath has a pine liner I carved out of some old...

I had the same thing happen with a kuksa I was hollowing. I just used a thick coating of epoxy and moderate clamping pressure, it came together pretty well although it didn't look too good (big dark line all along the crack). Any kind of strong glue should be fine and some like gorilla glue may...

I work a desk job 40 hours a week so I don't have farmers hands (and they're a little on the small side to boot), but that said I've noticed a big improvement in the 8 months I've been carving with axe and knife. When I first started I could barely keep going for an hour with any tool without...

It's spalted black birch, but I cut pretty low down on the tree by the roots so it has a little bit of figure to it. It's very hard in spite of the spalting.

Just a frosts hook knife, though most of the hollowing was done with an Ashley Iles curved gouge. I've got an order in for a Svante Djarv large hook and I'm really interested in trying out one of those long-handled hook knives tied to a sling around the neck (Niklas Karlsson aka ahardslojdlife...

I worked out another kuksa, this time taking into consideration some of my mistakes from my first. I carved this one in about half the time to minimize drying and checking and the walls are much thinner and more uniform (about 4mm all around). The finish is straight off the knife and it's had a...

This is my first post here, so I thought I'd dive right in and show my kuksa with a mini-tutorial. I made a number of mistakes with it but learned a huge amount. I wanted to make it from a burl but we don't get many of those on our trees (chalk it up to fairly mild weather, I guess). I ended...