What a "Woodlore" would be....

[Longstrider]

....if it grew up ?

I just thought I post a couple of (crappy) pictures of my second foray into knifemaking from scratch.
5mm thick 01 with a Scandi grind. 6" blade. Brass hidden bolts, bolsters and 6mm lanyard tube with handle slabs of Lignum Vitae with thin black and white vulcanised spacers.

Not sure what design the sheath for this one will be yet as I only finished the handle yesterday.






Working with the Lignum Vitae was quite an eye opener. The stuff turned out to be very nearly as hard as the brass of the bolsters and it seems like nature designed the stuff for the sole purpose of clogging whatever sandpaper touched it within about 3 seconds flat!

 

[OzaawaaMigiziNini]

I like her! Give her a name yet?

 

[Longstrider]

Well, none of the names it was called whilst I was sanding the handle are printable on a family orientated forum , so how about the BBB or 3B knife?
(Big Bad "Bushy")

 

[addyb]

Ooooh...that is one fine lookin' blade! Excellent work!

 

[sargey]

that's a man size woody! excellent!

though i have to wonder how heavy a 5mm slab like that weighs, what with the brass and the LV too.

cheers, and.

 

[Ed]

Nice work mate


Ed

 

[leon-b]

very nice mate well done yes must weigh a fair bit
leon

 

[Snufkin]

I like it. How does it fair in the field?

 

[Shinken]

Very nice mate!

and it seems like nature designed the stuff for the sole purpose of clogging whatever sandpaper touched it within about 3 seconds flat!

I know what you mean, Thuja is the same too! :aargh4:

 

[Longstrider]

Thank you for the kind comments guys. Yes, it's a heavy beast but as anyone who's seen my bergen can tell you, I'm no minimalist who counts the ounces This is the first knife I've ever fitted a lanyard tube to. My thinking was that if it proved to be useless as a knife I could always use it as an anchor for the canoe
Once I've stopped doing all the other things that seem to fill up lifes spare time I'll get a sheath made and it will become safe to carry this knife out and see how well it fares in the real world. Until then I'll just content myself with knowing that I've finished it and it has an edge that a good mate described as " **** ! Thats scary even by your standards!"
Shinken, I made a couple of bits and bobs out of some Thuya Burr a few months back and that was nowhere near as much of a pain to sand as this has been. Nowhere near as hard either!

 

[C_Claycomb]

For oily wood I generally do most of my sanding wet. It does seem to keep the clogging down. In some regards, hard wood is easier to finish than the softer stuff. At least you can take it to nearly finished with files, whereas with something like walnut the files compress the wood and it takes ages to sand the marks out. Mind you, I haven't used lignum vitae. The above has worked out for cocobolo, bocote, rosewood and blackwood though. After hearing Longstrider's experiences, I think I will keep it that way

One question though. Does Lignum Vitae oxidise with age? The stuff that I have seen all looked green, where-as Longstrider's pics show it as almost orange