Church & Son
Well-Known Member
I changed from Oil to Brime quenches out of necessity, I stumbled then kicked over the oil. We live way out in the woods so to get more oil meant a trip into town. Looking at the mess I thought, ‘smiths have been using water for quenching for a few thousand years and we have lots of water here, just add some salt and you have Brime. Period correct, use what you have, sounds like me. That was about a hundred blades ago and I like it. I learned this is a very turbulant quench, no gray area it either hardens very well or cracks. Two seconds in, two out, repeat until cool and hope you don’t hear the PING. The PING is the sound the metal makes as it tears itself apart. It is very faint but YOU can hear it over the volcano that is happening in the tank. About fourty of those hundred have cracked, less the more I do. This skinner is one of the minority. It started life as a worn out Nicholson file and was forged into a Bowie style blade about ten inches long, normalised twice then quenched in the brine water-PING- I looked at what was left and thought, Big Buffalo Skinner, so back into the forge it went. After a little more heatin’ and beatin’ this is what I ended up with.
The handle is a Whitetail antler piece I found in a fence by the river. Apparently caught in the fence and broken off, it has a rust stain across where it was wrapped with wire. The butt is a Cedar knot picked up in the pasture. The blade is 3″ long, 2″ tall and overall length is 8.5″. I poured a little pewter for the bolster and aged everything to look very used.
Sheath is rawhide over veg-tan with a rawhide concho and a bead whittled from the same cedar knot. Sometimes mistakes turn out pretty good, ya never know when you might have to skin a buffalo.............Randy "Preacher" Church
The handle is a Whitetail antler piece I found in a fence by the river. Apparently caught in the fence and broken off, it has a rust stain across where it was wrapped with wire. The butt is a Cedar knot picked up in the pasture. The blade is 3″ long, 2″ tall and overall length is 8.5″. I poured a little pewter for the bolster and aged everything to look very used.
Sheath is rawhide over veg-tan with a rawhide concho and a bead whittled from the same cedar knot. Sometimes mistakes turn out pretty good, ya never know when you might have to skin a buffalo.............Randy "Preacher" Church
