hey I'm making a a knife for a very dear friend, and i wanted to make something special, my idea was to make a knife and scrimshaw their first name on one side and their last name on the other but because of how important this person is to me i wanted to make something thats intimately connected to me. I was wondering if it would be possible to scrimshaw with blood.

Before i get any freaked out replies, I am a christian, but i practice a form of druidism that teaches an interconnectedness with nature, and emphasizes the importance of blood bonds.

I do a bit of scrimshaw and that is a very interesting idea you have there. Blood stains and stays in various mediums, but I'm not sure how permanently. Maybe you could mix some blood with the ink. Decomposition smell might be a problem, but it would be such a small amount I doubt it. Now I'm going to have to do some experimenting.

I have done scrimshaw in th past the most important thing is to ware a resperator

I do not think that it would be really permanent especially being used on a handle where it would tend to wear off fastest. Blood will stain clothes where it can get into the fibers, but may not get the penetration you need in a piece of ivory, antler, or bone. It may need some sort of a sealer to make it more permanent.

I have seen guns, and knives that had blood stains, or that is what they were purposed to be anyway. Sometimes a story helps to sell something. But anyway you could mask off an area on the blade, be it a name or a design , and put a little blood on it to stain it. Use a mask like wax, and you could get some nice detail.


In an old movie (Moby Dick perhaps) a blade was quenched in blood.

yeah it was moby dick. great movie by the way lol. So what would i do, just mix the blood with a little ink and pour it into the engraving then use a sealer of of somekind? I wonder if i could pour the mix in, then spray enamel over the whole handle or would that smear the blood/ink? What would hold the marking better, horn, bone or ivory?

Edited September 20, 200916 yr by TexasIronworker

could you cut a deeper relief and mix blood with clear two part epoxy?then overlay with more epoxy?

hi guys ,

talked to my scrimshaw man . why not red ink {could he tell the diference} mix a small amount of blood with the ink.

incuded some of my liner locks with scrim shaw of tas annimals plus a kiwi bird.

he recons blood and ink would be ok.

Daniel TASMANIA.