Anyone else gearing up for the Wisc. whitetail season??

[Supermag]

Wow, that is a beautiful blade to start with.

You should put a antler handle on it instead of leather (probably would have to wait until the hunt is over though). Is that blade hollow ground?

[Dave King]

I'm as done as I'm gonna get with this knife, making this type handle from scratch is a pain! (I've not make one from a kit either but but I'd suspect it'd be a lot easier.)

I'll make the sheath, use it in Wisc. then shelve it I believe...

I ordered two Gene Ingram knives for use next year, it only took a few minutes and I didn't get burned or cut.... far easier and faster!

[Mountainsheep]

Dave,

Great looking blade! What are the critical dimensions? OAL; ect...?
Dave

[Dave King]

I guess I forgot to answer about the grind; its not hollow ground.

I made the blade shape with an angle grinder and hand files... I also used a 4" belt sander a good bit for the cutdown size of the tang. I filed the last inch or so of the tang down to 1/4" and threaded it 1/4 x 20 for the acorn nut.

The aluminum was a big old chunk of round stock so I sawed a thinner slab off for the front guard and used the remained for the rear bolster. The tang is 1/4" x 3/4" as seen in the first images. I used J B Weld to cement the guard and rear bolster to the tang and elected to leave the compression nut in place with the acorn nut. The front and read bolsters are slotted for a fit on the 3/4" of the full thickness tang, I shouldn't be able to break it too easily.

I had a hard time getting the leather to polish up like I want but I'll live with it the way it is.

The background sheets have 1/4" squares so the knife blade is ~ 6" with the leather portion of the handle being 3.5" and the rear bolster is ~ 1". The blade is 1.25" wide at its widest with a 1/8" wide blade at the spine. The knife is 10.5" long to the end of the rear bolster with another 1/2 for the acorn nut (11" total).

I'll be done with the sheath tomorrow then maybe write the Whack-A-Mole bears tale.