Joshua States

Oh Man. I have to take a week off of work......

Yeah, I like that spear head! It's still in pretty good shape too.

Joël, C'est magnifique! Yeah cocobolo can be very diverse in coloration and grain. I have a block of 8/4 that I cut pieces off every once in a while. The colors change over time. It's funny how that looks like it has this white line running down the belly and stopping just before the bird head. Great idea @Kerri Duncan.

There is also a new video by Peter Johnsson coming (currently on his Youtube channel) about the hoard and its history. I watched it a few days and it was fascinating. Storytelling at its best.

I do the reverse. I rough them in on the grinder and set them with a file pre-HT and clean up on the grinder. Having a work rest will help immensely with setting plunges on the grinder.

OK. Here you go. Most of this is my opinion, and not to be misconstrued as objective fact. Proportion. Always think about proportion of elements to each other. The knife is quite thin to start off and the heavy taper on the tang is elegant, but then there are these fat scales. To my eye, the handle is way too thick for such a thin blade and tang. The scales on this knife should be slender, but still curved on the sides. This takes practice. It took me a long time to realize that 1/4" thick is plenty. Lines and relationships to each other. The angled bolster and subsequent brass spacers do not relate well to the straight and square plunge cuts. The sudden juxtaposition of these lines looks awkward and out of place to me. I would have liked it more had the bolsters and brass spacers been parallel to the plunge lines. For angled bolsters, they typically tip the other direction (longer on top/spine edge) and the plunge cuts run the same way. Speaking of those plunge cuts.....the ricasso is much too large for that configuration. Making the ebony bolster larger would have solved the pin issues by giving you ample room to arrange the pins and made the ricasso area smaller and more in proportion to the entire package. Moving the finger guard back and leaving a smaller ricasso in front of it would have solved the choil problem Alan is seeing. I don't think your choil is too large, it's just not in the right location compared to everything else going on around it, or everything else is in the wrong location. Take your pick. Your original drawing was fine the way it was. If you hadn't chosen to do plunge cuts and ricasso, a lot of these things I'm seeing now would have never occurred had you stayed with your first idea. You could also have added those elements pretty easily just by making a very slender ricasso that started on the curve about 1/8" in front of the bolster. Clean, simple and practical. Now for what I really like about this knife. The profile shape is sweet. A very seriously good shape for an EDC and well executed. The curves are smooth and flow nicely through the form. I really like the fact that you purposely decided to put some sort of guard/finger stop on this knife. The shape is good and looks very functional. Pin placements in the main body are spot on. The distance from the rear pin to the heel matches the space from the front pin to the brass spacer, and the mosaic pin is almost dead nuts centered between the two and top to bottom. Could just be the angle of the camera or that wide angle lens, but it looks a tiny bit closer to the spine than it is to the belly. The choice of materials and colors really makes this handle pop and the finish on the blade looks very clean. All in all, I'd say this was an extremely ambitious project for a first go and most "noobs" would have flailed and failed. You did not. I put your success down to two things. Your experience as a craftsman and having Dave's guidance.

What problems did you have with the belt grinder? Did you strike a center line down the edge before grinding? Today I took that 1" square bar of 4-way PW and twisted it...….by hand.

A set of calipers or a micrometer will help immensely with the pin stock and drill bits. I have found that most of the pin stock I get is a few thousandths over the stated diameter, and rarely ever matches the drill bit well enough. I usually have to "dress" my pin stock with 320 grit sandpaper and a drill, even after using a reamer to open the holes a little.

Nice hammers. I must have missed something in the translation regarding an "offset" though. Where is this? Is it an acute angle between the head and handle?

Yeah me too. I'm having trouble visualizing it though.

Nice job on those chisels and the carving Rob. Steady as she goes.....

Like this

Why couldn't you take a single angle iron and mount it to a square bar so it forms a T. Then slide the square bar through a square tube welded to the base. Put the set screw in the square tube. Have the angle stick up past the top of the lower die and parallel to the die holder. This would form a flat guide to push the blade against at a set distance from the fuller dies. I can draw a picture if that doesn't make sense.

What species of wood?

I am speechless. I sat here staring at those WIP pics with my mouth open. Bravo good sir. That is really cool.