For something a bit different after the last bowie I decided to do one from another rasp and with a forward curved guard and a hidden tang handle. Have it ground and HT and sitting on my pattern with the guard before any work starts on it. Will not get back to it this week as a friend and I are away hunting for a coupe of days. A nine inch blade on this one so a bit longer than I usually do
And even further from what I usually do is what this spanner is going to be. A while back a friend was making a few hawks from old spanners and I got one for a friend and picked up another couple of the open enders when I was at the scrapyard the other day. Starting at 3 3/4 lb they are solid and heavy so I set about getting some bulk and weight off it.
The spanner head was 3/4 inch thick and the shaft was a 1/2 in so there was a great deal of grinding to get it down to 1/4 at the handle end tapering from 3/8 just behind the head. Re shaped the shaft width as well as the thickness
Drillled a series of holes to lighten it further
And comparing it to an untouched one. The weight has gone from 3 3/4 llb dow to 2 lb even which will reduce further when the head is forged into an hawk head. I will get a friend to do the forging as I am no longer prepared to do the ammount of hammering that it will require and Andrew has a power hammer so it is a no brainer to send it to him to do that part for me
I did a few on the farriers rasp earlier on OP and have a farrier friend who drops in used rasps from time to time. Have a few on hand. These are the eXceL LEGEND rasps by Heller a Colombian made rasp and they do rake an edge. After HT I gave it a few wacks on the edge of a piece of mild steel which it marked with some good gouges so it takes a good HT. Some rasps are only surface hardened and will not take a HT but these are good ones.
I have another one done in my standard pattern which I will give to the farrier as a thank you for the supply of the raw rasps.
I dropped the spanner hawk off at my friends place but it may be a month or two before I get it back with the hawk head forged in.
On with other projects
In talks with my agent I decided to do something with a (US) patriotic handle so have been doing a couple of experiments with my own made micarta looking to get the right proportions of colours and think that this latest batch is going to be the one for table knives with thinner scales. I did a short video today of making the white and blue side of the scales and then made up the white and red side after the video was done.
Will take it out of the clamps tomorrow and get it on a blade to see how it comes out but am confident it is going to work visually as I know it is good to go structurally. I am going to do a thicker set of blocks that will suit the likes of the JT Ranger knife and others with similar sized handlles.
Anyway this is the video and while it may be a bit boring with its repetitiveness it is only 8 minutes and is the process
Nice video. I’ve tried micarta once. It turned out okay but it was such a huge mess. You certainly found an efficient and mess-free way to do it. Thanks for sharing.
Nice video. I’ve tried micarta once. It turned out okay but it was such a huge mess. You certainly found an efficient and mess-free way to do it. Thanks for sharing.
The two steel spreader knives make for the mess free method Mike.
I got some scales on a blade this morning but will do another set of blocks this week from a thinner paper as there is a possibility of a lack of wetting with the thicker card.
Got the handle cleaned up today and while there are a few tweaks needed These will be a standard offering on my table knives which will be as a pair with one knife having the blue on one side and the second knife having the blue on the other. Will more than likely make a thicker set for the heavier handled knives
A while back I got aa few more rasps from the local farrier so decided I should make him something from one of them as a thank you and the larger knife seems to be the logical choice to get the most from the steel so I cut a coupe of different version of the same knife with one being my "standard" bowie with 7 1/4 inch blade and 12 3/4 overall and it has a brass boster with olivewood handle
The other is a hidden tang with a 9 1/2 inch blade and 15 inches overall. The guard is blued steel with a myrtlewood handle. The hidden tang makes for a lighter knife with a blade bias to the 9 oz weight compared to the 9 1/2 oz for the full tang shorter knife.
A standard skinner and a boner with accacia/blackwood are all ready for the sheaths that are being done today for the local farm shop.
. I'm so excited to see someone better that me make a rasp knife. I will be taking notes aswell
