My amateur entry is as follows:
Knife Blade: 8 1/4" stainless bowie blade with full tang and brass bolster - £9.95 from Heinnie Haynes
Purple heart handle scales: £7 the pair posted off the bay.
Brass rod from eBay - £3 including postage.
Clear yacht varnish: free off the parents.
Quick setting 2 part epoxy resin: local family bargains store - 99p
A grand total of £20.94 for materials
So I've decided to have a god at doing an iconic Bowie knife. People at wok have started calling me crocodile dan dee so I thought this to be a fitting tribute to that sentiment.
I started as I always do by checking, marking and fitting the bolster. Then i did the marking and roughing out of the shape of the scales. They were cut out and drilled before getting a rough edge sanding.
I encountered a problem on this in that 3mm rod was too small for pins and 5mm rid too big so I decided I'd buy the 5mm rid and I bored out the holes in the tang and scales.
The scales were then glued and clamped to the tang and then left to set dry and solid. Once the scales had dried they were rough shaped with a deemed and sanding bit and then finely sanded with progressively finer grits of sand paper.
I have left the handle on this nice and chunky as I have big hands but it is very nice to hold and has great balance around the bolster.
2 coats of clear yacht varnish has enriched the colour of the scales immensely after sanding them. Then they were sanded and buffed down to leave it looking as it does.
The final effort was to give the blade a full oil down and small wire wooling and to buff up the brass bolster.
Here is the finished result.
Tape measure for size comparison
One showing how it fits in my hand.
Overall I really like this knife. I've put about 20 hours into it and the rewards are great. I'm also very pleased with the purple heart scales a the colour is all natural and I think the bras bolster and pins are a very nice compliment.
Hope you all like.