Making a Hunting Knife with Antler Handle and Brass Bolsters

this is the knife we're gonna make with 1095 steel brass bolsters and antler scale handle [Music] before I go to the belt grinder I like to use a flat disc to get as close as I can to those lines and there we go this still looks pretty close to the picture I'm gonna color the side of this blade now with sharpies so that we can mark out right where the middles at I've used a drill bit that's about the same width as my knife and just scratched in a little line right there in the middle this lets me know how far to make my bevels on each side now I use this little jig that I've made for my bevels that makes sure that everything lines up perfect it is the same on both sides and we grind away until the knife is where we want it [Music] it's important that you nourish the small details like the plunge lines make sure that those line up and that your bevels end at the same spot near the point here's the antler that we're going to use for our scales for the handle I want to make sure to keep all this texture so we're lighting it up to see exactly where we want it to be then we'll draw a line and cut it when cutting antler or bone or any still for that matter make sure to wear respiratory protection so that you don't breathe in all of that it is a terrible smell it's disgusting and you don't want to be breathing that in [Music] well there's our antler we'll shape it up so that it can fit perfectly on the knife now I'm gonna drill holes put our pins in probably a couple extras to reduce the weight in the handle we're gonna cut out our brass liners and we'll probably put some holes in that as well so we can line it up and eat everything to fit in the handle correctly [Music] [Music] lining up your holes to me one of the hardest things to do for your handle I always like to put a pin on the other once i've filled the first hole so that everything lines up the way I want it to [Music] the antler though this is kind of tricky and things didn't quite line up exactly how I wanted because things weren't square but the block of wood it's easy to find square and drill your hole perpendicular to the blade but with the antler it's not square so it's hard to get this to line up exactly how I wanted it made glue up very difficult even though one side worked the whole thing all together was a little bit of a struggle this is where we're at there's still quite a bit to do but it's starting to look like a knife I'm gonna go around and shape the antler and the brass to fit the blade exactly how we want it that way there will be a tighter fit up later and it'll be a little bit easier we're gonna draw out our bolsters cut them out drill the holes try to get everything to fit right we're gonna heat it up a couple times and let it cool down to get the metal to be the way it's supposed to be so it stays hard then we'll heat treat it and then temper it this is all done to make sure your blade stay sharp and now here's the heat treat we test it with the magnet to make sure that it's at the right temperature and I'm just using cooking oil but it hardened this style helps let you know if not it would put some some good scratches in there I also like to do a couple tests once I clean it up smack a log a couple times hit the point a little bit just make sure that it it's hard and that your knife is gonna work the way it's supposed to [Music] now we need to work on the bolsters it's important to do as much as you can on the bolsters before you glue it up so we're going to draw a couple lines put them together and try to get everything exactly how we want it [Music] as we get towards the end it's important to hand saying I used to try to skip this step and do everything I could but if you want a good finish it's important to Hansen we're gonna skip some of that so I've been watching a couple of videos another step it's important to line up your handle with your Acosta right there so we need to take this down a little bit more now that everything is good to go we're gonna exit here's my sticker I'll put a link up above if you want to learn how to edge metal but we're gonna kind of skip through that but it's nice to put the logo on it makes everything look nice and sharp now that I've got everything pretty close to how I want it we're going to use a glue up I'm gonna use 24 hour epoxy just gives me the time to get all these pieces in you can do smaller sections at a time but I just had to do it all together so drop a black paint just like the way that looks a little bit more a little more crisp and then we'll get going [Music] as I was putting it all together I realized that most of it was out of the frame [Music] here it is after the glue up I've cleaned up quite a bit still - and there's still more to do but I'd show a little bit of progress here it's starting to look really nice and here we'll do some hand sanding once again to give it a nice finish and then I think we're there if you enjoyed like and subscribe for future projects [Music] [Music]

Channel: Forging Fish

Views: 10,021

Rating: 4.8222222 out of 5

Keywords: knife making, handmade knife, brass bolsters, antler knife handle, antler scales, antler handle, hunting knife

Id: wcLlUrokLBk

Length: 11min 12sec (672 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 04 2020