My African Knives

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I did do one with antler the customer supplied and I have a set but havent got round to doing anything with it yet. Orders have been for other handle material so far.

 

Make sure you all enter this years knife giveaway competition for the Safari knife with curve backed buffalo horn bolsters with Griaffe bone handles in a right or left handed tooled sheath.
https://www.africahunting.com/threa...von-gruff-in-a-random-drawing-giveaway.53442/



The sheath will be like this one

 

Made a start on the impala horn handles for some light hunters for a friends 3 sons. I decided to use a NZ Rimu for the front plug bolster because it is similar in colour to the base of the horn that Tony hunted. I will use ebony for the pommel plug.
Fitting the plug reminded me a lot of the similar process when fitting the butt socket for the Magazine Lee Enfirld when making the Lee Speed type stocks.

 

These are ready to ship
#1 is a Hunter skinner with raindrop damascus, buff bolsters and macrocarpa handles.
#2 is another giraffe bone handled Safari Knife
#3 is a buffalo handled Hunter skinner
#4 is an Acacia handled skinner and
#5 is a Skinner for me with curve backed copper bolsters and giraffe bone handles. Have given thae previous ones away but might just keep a hold of this one.

 

Excellent - must order again in the new year

 

Hi @Von Gruff . I wanted to show you a knife and get your impressions? I'm a big fan of esee knives, they make great bushcraft knives and for a mass-marketed facimile of your custom pieces, they fill a good nitch. I keep looking back at a knife they make that is what an American calls a "trout and grouse" knife, a delicate knife that is great for deboning big game and its wonderful for work on birds. It's thicker than you'd think so its not springy or delicate like a boning knife.

Have you made such a knife before?

https://eseeknives.com/product/esee-cr25

 

The closest to that would be these two but it is a simle matter to change a design to meet any needs. I called my bird knife that because I wasnt working in stainless at the time but now I can do the heat treat in my new forge.
As always I am very keen to adapt a design to suit any needs

 

For those of us that can't sharpen knives...can it be made with a scandi grind, or is it too thin?

Any idiot can use a strop, it takes a savant to keep a secondary bevel at the right angle to sharpen using a stone.

 

I haven't done a scandi on 1/8 thickness but there is no reason not to do so.

 

https://www.havalon.com/piranta-fitment-2
You have just to change the blade ... it's a scalpel

 

I can make the blade any shape and size that you would like or want

 

For those who have a secondary bevel, this is a trick I have used with the stone set at the usual 20 degrees on the corner of the bench so it can swivel aowing for easy access to both sides and this way you only have to keep the blade vertical which is much easier to do than trying to keep the blade at the 20degrees through the full length of the blade (especially the belly to tip portion) The angle is fractioally steeper than a set of ceramic sticks which are used to remove the wire edge if a strop is not availabe. The Crock sticks are a handy addition to your kit if away from home for a longer hunt.

 

Finally finished the impala horn handled knives and quite pleased with the result. I used rimu as the bolster with a piece of black G10 facing and ebony for the pommel.
The ebony pommel was treated like the bolster end and soketed into the horn end with the threaded rod drilled into the ebony to create another gripping surface for the epoxy.

I added black dye to the epoxy and waited for everything to set up overnight.

This gave me the basis for the handle so a shaping session was next.

And with a fine sand and buffed it was time to add the finish to the resulting handle.

Looking from underneath or the blade edge side

and from the top or spine side.

 

I really like the idea of the impala horns. The knurled horns keep them from slipping in your hand when they get bloody (assuming one will actually bloody these beauties!)
I have found slipping in my old hands an issue when using smoothly finished grips. The knurls or checkering helps prevent it.

 

Yes and that is a real problem - one slip and look no fingers

 

I often wonder why the scandinavian puuko is so often used throughout that part of the world with its particular handle shape that seems to invite slippage

 

Beautiful work sir
Thank you for sharing

 

That is a common thought yet if you look around a heck of a lot of hard working knives have no guard at all and we aren't hacking our hands open right and left. Most Scandinavian knives, the mass majority of pocket knives from the inexpensive Okapi and Opinel to the Barlow in my pocket right now. The paring knives I own and my skinner in RSA used last year were basic with no guard. Heck, even the Victorinox serrated paring knives, AKA Vickie, used by every deck hand I knew of on fishing boats on the Bering sea has nothing more than a token guard. All used in slippery conditions. Honestly, most of my cuts have been to the hand holding the object being cut, not the knife wielding one.
So, while I won't say a guard isn't useful at times and injuries happen, their frequency shows that we humans naturally know how to hold and use a guardless knife.

 

I guess I should have been a bit more explicit in my statement. Almost all of my knives that do not have a guard, have some sort of finger stop in the form of a curve down in front of the finger as an aid in comfort and safety but the scandinavian design is without even that, so while I still wnder WHY that desgn became so widespread it is obvious by its very ubiquity throughout that region and further abroad that it is not as "unsafe" as its apearance may sugest.
I have made a Leku (the big brother to the puuko and the slight egg shaped handle does aid in the grip with most of the puuko having a slight center swell that would serve the same function. It is just not a style that many of us are familiar (or comfortable) with.

 

I think the use made the shape : these knives aren't made to sting or push but to pull like skinning or cutting so they don't need any guard.
here is mine (a modern vision of puuko homemade)