Alex Middleton

I'm going out on a limb here, but I'd say it's because it was plugged with ice!

I've had the same experience with the HF rasps, to the point that I rarely use them anymore. They take wood off very fast, but you spend a ton of time afterward trying to clean up all of the gouges that they leave.

Handles then!

I don't think you'll have any strength issues to worry about. Getting even bevels is one of the hardest things to do and something I struggle with on every knife I make. A full flat grind is probably the easiest to make look consistent as you don't have the transition line to worry about. A sabre grind like what you have going on there will always leave you with some sort of transition. Grinding jigs help, but in the end it just comes down to practice, practice, practice. What you do with the ricasso area is completely up to you. You could drop the spine down to be even, blend it in, or leave it as is. It's your knife and in the end just do what makes you happy with it.

On a blade with scales I typically put my pin holes in as the very last step before heat treat. I find that I always seem to make adjustments to the tang as I go along and putting the pin holes in too early means that they don't look right afterwards. I would finish up rough grinding your bevels and get the steps to your tang filed in place at the very least. With the spine of your knife falling away a little bit in the ricasso area I think that you're going to end up making some adjustments that may end up effecting how wide your tang is.

Not being a knife thrower I don't really have any first hand experience to say which is better. Thinking through it logically I guess a clip point would theoretically stick a little easier and deeper, especially if you were to put a false edge on the clip. On the other hand it would seem to be a little bit weaker as there is less material supporting the tip and would lead it to be more prone to breaking on an errant throw. Personally when I think of a throwing knife I envision a dagger as it kind of gives you the best of both worlds. A lot of people prefer a drop point on a hunter/skinner style knife. The blunter point is (again theoretically) less likely to cut the hide while skinning. That being said, when I process my deer every year I tend to gravitate toward using my clip point hunter and a fillet knife. I'm not usually trying to save the hide, and I think they work better for getting into the joints while quartering. Honestly what I think it boils down to is personal preference and experiences. What works for you may not work for someone else, and vice-versa.

Maybe this will help? It's super rough, by no means dimensionally accurate, but I believe illustrates the difference.

Thanks for the input! Handle size/shape is something that I typically struggle with. Sometimes I feel I get it right, and other times it's just not quite there.

This is the first successful multi-layer blade that I've been able to make. It started out as .015" thick 1095 shim stock, and .032" thick high carbon pallet strapping. Both were rescued from the scrap dumpster at work. I welded it up into a billet of 13 layers just to see what would happen. I lost a few layers along the way, but I've always been a fan of the low layer look anyway. The blade is 4" to the plunge lines and .125" thick, OAL is 9". The handle is home stabilized black walnut and African blackwood with a spacer from the 1095 shim stock. I tried a few new things with the handle, some I'm happy with and others I'm not. The shape of the handle is a little off, it fits the hand nice but doesn't really feel like it "belongs" there. I tried to put an epoxy ring around the handle pin by counterboring the outside of the pin hole. This turned out to be a bad idea as I didn't get the counterbore centered. Overall I guess I would say that it turned out OK. As always, any and all comments and critiques are welcome. Thanks for looking! Alex

https://www.ozarkknifemakers.com/aboutus.htm

When wanting to use the more acidic woods, would stabilizing them beforehand help to prevent the rusting issue?

Thank you! I needed that today!

I'll chime in on the burner position. If you're looking to get a swirl pattern in your forge, you will want the burner to come in at a tangent to the inside. Picture the burner being horizontal, and coming into the forge at roughly the 2:00 position, give or take. In other words, the top of your burner pipe, when It's sitting horizontally, should be roughly level with the top of the inside of your forge.

Do you have the mini router head attachment for your Dremel? I didn't think of it earlier, but I've used mine several times for putting blade shaped pockets into my folding cutting boards. It gives a nice consistent depth across the entire pocket with sharp corners at the bottom. With the right amount of planning you could do the same thing for pocketing out a scale.

I use the belt sander to rough in the general shape of the handle, and then switch to my Dremel to get it closer to finished. I typically use 1/4" and 1/2" sanding drums. In the lower grits they take off a fair amount of material, but still give you a good bit of control and fit into the tighter curves. I don't do much decorative carving because I suck at it. When I do bite the bullet and try it, I typically end up using a combination of the Dremel and hand chisels.