Fox Creek

Very nice indeed! The sycamore we have here in the US is a weak, soft wood. That looks more like boxwood with that carving.

Wow, I was just thinking about Bowie and wondering how that story closed. It is wonderful that this is happening.

Back in the day when I was working on things, I was very fond of brazing ferrules and such with snippets of yellow brass, very well scoured of any tarnish, with a drop of borax/boric acid in water as flux. I always enjoyed that.

'good to see ya still working Ray. Very nice as always.

Alan, what's the benefit of a stave scabbard? Or is it just a cultural variation?

OK, for one hundred Bob, I'll pick Morocco.

Lovely. There is a subtle Asian nuance to the blade, even before HT (if I am sequencing the pics correctly)

Love the red vinyl tape. Years ago I worked in a shop where we used miles of yellow vinyl tape as mask-out for abrasive "etching".

beautiful wood, there. And, beautifully finished. There is a nuance to wood finishing that goes beyond the buffed lacquer of the 70's.

Hi Tim. I haven't seen you on-line in a long while, but maybe just didn't look in the right place. 'glad you are still kickin' it.

wow. That must be a 100 LB plus-ish "hammer", "ram" ?

STORMCROW! I remember Stormcrow well. Do you know Tai Goo James?

Hmmm, if you are not going for dramatic grain, European Beech makes a great all around wood for dirks & such. I bought a couple of 2-inch planks years ago, back when I was active, and used it on several dirks and sgians. It is hard, but not recalcitrant to carving, and not brittle. Stains and dyes well. Nice for replicas, goes "antique-ee" beautifully.

Alan, I imagine that the barium acts as an "accelerant", optimizing carbon transfusion into the iron. Lots of old shop manual recipes called for adding calcium carbonate to the mix as an accelerant, but I believe this was a red herring and a mistaken shop tradition.