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Here's the knives I gave to my older brother and sister over the weekend.  Both are O1 tempered twice at 450F for two hours after hardening, and both are 11 inches overall lengthIMG_2096.thumb.JPG.63a2be455e9b6558889fe.  If my hardness files are to be believed they are between 60 and 65 Rockwell.   A few firsts for me here.  My first hollow ground blades.  My first (American style) tanto.  My first dovetail furniture and scales. 

The tanto has stainless furniture and pins with dyed and stabilized maple burl on the handle.  The drop point has home made blue jean micarta scales with spent .357 magnum casing "piin covers"  which were fired from my sister's gun - to add that personal touch. I flared some stainless tubing I have for the lanyard hole.

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The pin covers are a nice personal touch!   Don't know if I would have armed my older Sister; but then the blade is probably easier to run away from than the bullet...we get along great nowadays but I can show you scars from when we were younger.  

I am really an un-fan of the "american tanto" design in general so I will say the execution looks good and leave it at that.

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Fortunately my older sister and I have almost always gotten along well.  She got me out of trouble more than once when we were kids.  I do have some scars from my other siblings though.

I hear you on the lack of preference for the american tanto, but he said he prefers that style.  It kind of surprised me since he has been a martial arts instructor for 30 years with an 8th degree black belt in karate and 6th degree black belt in kenpo.  I figured he'd prefer the traditional Japanese style tanto. No accounting for taste I guess.

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Personally I prefer the american Tanto design. I like having the two separate cutting edges and the two distinct points. I find that when im cutting with it I have far more control then with more traditional rounded points. its also easy to put two different edges on them depending on your use. 

Those two pieces are beautiful. And the maple on the Tanto really helps to define the Shape. I would never have thought of using spent casings for knife hardware. Thats a good Idea. 

What did you use for the interior pins under the casings?

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Depends on your application, a rounded belly instead of the abrupt transition of a tanto cuts skin and flesh easer, so as a hunting knife a tanto isn't the best choice. If you notice Most of the kendo kattas use a slicing or sawing mottion to take advantage of the curved blade. 

Now as a weapon and a heavy use blade? Great design hard to break the tip, penintrates most armors in use, enugh curve for a good slash. And isn't considerd a "Bowie knife" or "dagger" in Oklahoma. 

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Thanks for the compliments.  I appreciate it.

24 minutes ago, Darious said:

What did you use for the interior pins under the casings?

Normally I cut brass or stainless rods to use for pins.  However, in this instance I did not have rod in the diameter I wanted to work with, so I found some nails that had the right diameter and used them.  Since I knew they were going to be hidden anyway and coated in epoxy when I installed the covers it seemed like a good choice for this project. Nails also peen fairly well even though it's a little more difficult in a recessed area.

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  • 3 weeks later...

 

Thanks!

Yes.  It's hard to see in the pics, but the tanto has a convex grind from the tip down to the main cutting edge which is hollow ground.

A friend of mine who is not a knife enthusiast took the pics, so he focused on some different aspects than I would have if I were taking them.  I still use a "dumb phone" so transferring pics is a PITA for me.

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  • 2 weeks later...

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