Making Myself Another Bushcraft Knife.. again...

I count myself among the blessed people on the planet most of the time.  I have a great gig.  I work with good people.  I make almost enough money to cover the expense of being me and having kids.... it's a good thing.  Some of the best parts of my life are the friends that I have.  They are all good people who, for whatever reason, all seem to have the knives I have made for myself in the past.  :)  Since I know they didn't steal them, I must be to blame for that. 

Last week, while noodling around on a pad and helping my girl with her evening homework I stumbled onto a shape I really liked.  It's a variation of some that I have done previously and really liked so... I went to it.  I have some 7/64" O1 bar stock left from a previous project and decided to go that way for steel.  After some drawing and tracing and cutting and some more tracing... and a whole bunch of grinding, it popped out. 

As you might notice, I wasn't big on pictures up to this point.  I have done so many I thought would make it past the initial profile grind but then die because the look or feel like crap.  This one seems to work.  I got the initial grind in place and did some drilling for pins.

The first real goof was here.  The pommel pin is drilled the thickness of a sharpie marker ink line too high.  Not worry though.  I have an alternate pin plan that I like quite a bit.

I have the wet dry sand paper all teed up and ready to roll, once I get some time to sand it out.  It's all grainy right now...  needs some love...

Since this is, by shear course of hapenstance, an Autumn Bush Knife and I wanted to stay with the feeling of the season this year, I decided to go on the hunt for a more muted handle material.  Something a good deal more subtle than a massively figured burl and more sophisticated that Dymondwood.  Alphaknifesupply.com does not disappoint.  Check this out.  I found some stabilized Elm that is what I described to a T.

 

I also picked up some 1/16" G10 to use as a liner.  I am still on the fence about pins.  Once I see the color in person I'll decide about Brass or something else.

Anyhow, off to do the kid thing today.  Hopefully I get to sand some tonight or tomorrow and ship this one off on Tuesday.  Thanks for looking.

-JP