:wink: Finally broke down an' built on of those blades. Originally, I'd bought the blade an' some curly maple scales an' cutler's rivets as a simple project for my girlfriend, who loves knives an' is REAL good with tools, to do seeing as she was interested in learning how ta build them. Well, turned out she bought an old country house that needs a lot of fixin', most of which she's doin' on her own,except the roof of course(I got stuck with that), an the durned blade was just layin' there, an I was done with all my Christmas orders, plus some, so...
Had to do mine a little different, in that since I had a 1/8" carbide drill layin around, I drilled a couple of holes for a bolster, an then a new hole for a pin since by adding a bolster that left the available holes at the wrong spacing to look right. Decided to using copper for the bolster(with nickel silver pins--kind of a poor man's mokume gane) and the pins. Problem with those cutlers rivets is you have to keep the handle flat since those rivets have a real thin head, an you can't really round them. Whole project took me ten leisurely hours(would have been a lot less if I hadn't decided to get fancy) an' I've got a good lookin', ol' time knife(I've seen pictures of ol green river knives with bolsters) made out of some serious steel(takes a scary edge) all for around $12.50. I already had the drill an' the copper. An' it was fun to build. Makin' the sheath for it now an' it's going to be my "carry knife" for the rest of the year, which means the rest of small game season( I use 5" blades on rabbits an squirrels--real fast), hiking, canoeing, camping etc. An', if it holds up, next deer season. I'm curious how long it will last. Was at one of those "buckskinner/mountain man" sites the other day an' the guy was offering the exact same blade($7.00) and curly maple($2.50) with brass pins(2 cents) for $70.00. If you wanted a sheath that was $30.00 more! Kinda made my blood boil, which is kinda why I'm posting this. The stainless steel knives I make, the steel alone runs $13.00-$24.00 a foot, straight from the mill, before I even touch the stuff, an I don't think I can get a sharper edge out of them. The factory edge the the GR was fairly sharp, after I got done with it, I had one of these edges you seriously don't want to get careless with. What little hair I had left on my forearms after those Christmas knives is now gone! Anyone interested in building one, an I seems ta remember some ol posts where a couple a folks mentioned them, I highly recommend them (IMHO). Cabin fever is comin', least up in tha chilly North.
