Helle Turmann mini-bushster

[edispilff]

Didn't want to wait for 2 weeks to get the next order of blades in.. so i went down to the local knife shop for something to deconstruct, and lo and behold the nice girl behind the counter whipped out a couple of helle blades!
This knife is so cute and usable. It was originally designed for the outdoor woman, but would work in just about anybody's hand.

Specs:
Blade - Helle Turmann, stainless laminated, 80mm length
Handle - Pronghorn antelope horn, palette maple, deer antler base, 7075 AL and fiber spacers (plus ferrule/bolster), brass lanyard tube, glow circle (green) with bamboo center pin, 115mm length
Sheath - 3.5mm tooling leather, 50 lb. spectra (4x saddle stitched), nickel plated hardware. removable dangle-loop, partially proofed with mink oil (may end up doing a little tooling.. maybe not... who knows)
Firesteel - Deer antler, leather, antler bead, 6mm dia., glow dot (blue)

top down loaded

front unloaded

backside unloaded

top loaded

butt detail

It feels good to be doing stick tangs again It seems like there are a whole lot less limitations than full tang.

Some mistakes learned from this knife:
- when sanding aluminum spaced between different materials, it is best to use the lightest sanding paper you can get away with for material removal. Heavier grit sandpaper will fold small edge flaps into the adjacent material which become a pain in the butt to get out!
- The epoxy glow tube in the base of the antler was made prior to inserting into the handle. After cutting it, i noticed that there was a large bubble air pocket in the center. Thankfully it WAS in the center and was able to be filled either with more epoxy glow mix or the bamboo skewer (the cooking kebab type). It is best to have the tube in the handle first and then fill it with the mix prior to latter stage sanding.

Thanks for looking and stay creative!

 

[helixpteron]

Beautiful, very well crafted!

Even though the photo's are good, I imagine that seeing and handling really gives the full appreciation of just how lovely and purposeful it is.

 

[bushwacker bob]

Very nice job, Mr Spliff.

 

[brancho]

Nice job and nice to see someone making stick tangs

It is best to take photos outdoors in daylight if you can though or to try without the flash.

 

[edispilff]

Thank You for the nice comments gentlemen.

Yes, i'm aware of my picture taking deficiences these days. Been using a different camera every time. The weather, as of late, has been akin to that which you are more acustomed! It's been raining over here for the last week... every day... all day... and 15:00 looks like 19:00 hrs. These were taken inside, close to a window, with an old canon s200 powershot ixus. Need to rig up a tripod and a couple of aluminum foil reflectors and shoot without flash.

The funny thing is, i've worked at several photolabs (as a restoration/repair/heavy modification guy) in the past, and this should all be second nature .

...and will be doing hidden tangs for the next month or so before getting ready to set the trap lines again.

 

[rancid badger]

Oh yes, very nice,
what did you use to make your stitch holes? they look very round.
Whatever, its a really nice combination.
cheers
R.B.

 

[edispilff]

You're the first to notice that RB!
Alright, this is one of my favorite secrets to getting perfect stitchholes all the way through any amount/type of leather up to about 12mm. I imagine that most folks use a stitch marker wheel, then an awl, and then sew. But...When using spectra threads there isn't any "give" or stretch to the sinew/thread. So to compensate for this i have to make the leather around the holes a little harder and stronger so that when tightening up the thread loops it doesn't cut into the leather (believe me; a 10 lb. breaking strength spectra line has the same diameter as a 3 lb. strength polyester/nylon... the 10 lb. alone cannot be broken with are hands even way cross-layed upon itself with the hand wrap technique).

After a little experimenting with making my own pokers and awls, i went down to the local hardware store and bought a 5$ soldering iron (the older types called pencil solderers). Pulled/unscrewed the little copper piece out on the end, stuck it in a drill and proceeded to file it down to a size that would work for a 3-4 pass stitch. maybe about 1mm+? Now, i just do a light pencil sketch of the stitch line, mark it with the stitch wheel, brush a little olive oil on the smooth side of all the leather which is going to get a "hot-punch" (this keeps the leather from splitting and cracking around the hole edge), and burn a hole through every other stitch wheel mark. A piece of newspaper underneath keeps the heat from damaging my workspace, and leaves a perfect mark so that the leather can be flipped over and hot-poked through the other side.

It takes moderate pressure and quite a bit of timing to get it down.. but shouldn't take that long to figure out. Also, because the spectra is a lot thinner than typical artificial sinews, i can saddle stitch as much as 4 times before haviing to use a pair of pliers to pull the needle through (it's pretty much a full length bar tack). As long as you move the piece your working on and not the soldering iron, the stitch holes will be identical on both sides.

oh yeah, may want to test it first for those of you that use contact cements just to make sure they don't spontaneously ignite into flames:aargh4:

thanks for the uplifting comments gents