Simple Integral - First Hamon

[nsantella]

Though its simple, I was exited about this since it is my first successful attempt at differential hardening and my first actual commission. Its a basic integral with some kind of purple-red tropical hardwood scales and nickle silver pins. The custom part was engraving the bolster with an anniversary date in roman numerals and tooling for the sheath. I also extracted the filings from the handle scales in alcohol and used it to dye the sheath which seemed to work well. Steel was an old cold chisel quenched in oil with some high temperature pipe insulation cement for the spine. I only took it up to 400 as I was figuring on it getting used and cleaned with a scotchbright  pad. Etched in vinegar to bring the line out a little. Also chose to leave in some flaws from sloppy forging rather than grind thinner. Of course I failed to take some decent pictures before it left. 

Hammer engraving the bolster was the hardest part and came out barely tolerable.  I did the layout electronically and glued  the paper to the bolster which did not work very neatly, should have tried some king of solvent transfer. Even unhardened the steel took the edge off my home made engravers in single cut though they work ok on mild steel. Wound up hammering on a commercial push engraver. 

Would appreciate any critique. Thanks for looking!

 

[Alan Longmire]

Looks good to me!  Your Roman lettering is far better than mine.  

[JASON VOLKERT]

I like that handle the way it flows into the integral bolsters. It doesn't look so simple to me

[Garry Keown]

That looks like a very well preserved frontier knife made with a great deal of care. I like it 

[C Craft]

Very nice! You are too modest, "Simple Integral - First Hamon"! There is little I see simple about that one!! Really nice work on the sheath as well!!!                   

Edited January 21, 2019 by C Craft

[Brian Dougherty]

Nice work!  That particular way of blending the scales into the bolsters is not so easy to do

[nsantella]

 Thanks for the kind words. This was my second try (the first turned out to be lower carbon steel than I thought and wouldn't harden fully in oil or brine) and getting everything straight and symmetric on both the knife and scales was kind of fiddly. It is a pretty simple design, I guess that does not necessarily mean easy to do. Overall I was happy with it, just wished my engraving was a little less "rustic". Fun thing about this forum is that we all have to keep ratcheting up our standards with each new post from great artists and crafts people! I just try and tag along when the inspiration strikes me.