damascus with caribou handle

I started this in October and called it done in early February. It's for our neighbor who watched our dogs while we were gone for a couple months for my wife to have a baby. He agreed to let me pay him in knife. It was a long time to be gone so I was glad to purchase a good blade and give him a (relatively) rare handle and sheath for it. He's not local and might move soon so I thought a Caribou handle would give him good memory of the place.

I'm pretty confident of the handle construction. The tang has all thread hi- temp silver soldered to it with a nut attached to the butt cap the same way. Tightened up nice. It's about the look I've been trying to achieve. Just starting out and buying blades this about number five for me. And this is my first sheath. Thanks for the WIPs, other good advice on the forum, and links to videos. They helped tremendously. Hope you like.

Damascus blade purchased from KD
Caribou handle
Nickel silver guard, spacers, and butt cap
5/32 copper pin
Caribou leather sheath with Nickel silver rivets




I had a few questions along the way and would like to run them by some of you all. I'll follow this up with them and more pictures.

Luke

Here's the questions that I had:

Overall I think the blade and handle are disproportionate. Is there a general length for a handle so I could just measure and cut? I thought I could do it by eye and by feel but it looks funny. There are advantages for a large grip but not my choice look for a profile.



Another thing was I hammered too hard on the guard during this first attempt at a press fit. I didn't know the knife was a little over the vice arm and drove the tip into it and broke off about 3/32". This set me back to reshaping the false edge with a sharpening guide and refinishing the Damascus steel. My first time doing that and am happy except my ferric chloride mix was a little too strong. Great experience to watch the etch happen though and I used Mike Carter's WIP for etching. Thanks! The greatest difficulty I had was resetting the etch so it wouldn't rub off. I heated it up and used candle wax, but is there a better way?


I also used hi-temp silver solder (safty silv 56) (same as silver brazing?) and not too sure about my joint. I notched the tang and the threaded rod so they'd slip together. This would create four soldered joints with a fifth joint butted together inside everything instead of just one butted joint. Overkill? Someone on another place online recommended against a butted joint. You can see it behind the guard; the other side is the same.



I know the straight lines on the guard aren't even but I thought the sharp edges around the blade look pretty cool. I cut a sharp diagonal edge with a file to add detail. Is this called "gemming" it. I did the same thing on the buttcap but it's round.

Here's the process I used. I masked it off, traced a sharpie pen around the edge and then proceeded to take out the sharpie lines with a file. I held the sharpie right on the corner so I'd get an even mark on the top and side of the guard. Is there a better process for this? The marker left some uneven lines and I had to eyeball it anyway.




Probably enough questions. I'm learning a lot and hope to start bladesmithing soon.
Thanks again for taking time. And again I hope you like the knife overall.

Good Job!....I'll watch the pups next time....

Thanks Ted.