This months creation, forged from an old file with engraved tribal and karma sign on both sides. Total length 37 cm, blade 24,5 cm and 6 mm at the ricasso.

Steel cross-guard, copper spacers, pau santo ,oak wood and steel pommel secured with a threaded nut. Hand stitched leather sheath  .

 

  This was the most complicated and difficult knife I've ever made. From forging the tang, grinding the bevels, doing 4 ricasso and fitting the pommel on the threaded tang which broke twice, a huge undertaking with the small 5"x 26" belt grinder I have. Soon I'll upgrade to 5"x 48" and make some more daggers.

 Enjoy

 Cheers

 

Really nice creation D.IVO! You can definitely tell that a lot if work has gone in to it. Really like the blade and the engraving is a great touch. The guard goes well with the blade and the spacers and the pau santo in handle offset the oak well!

Sheath looks great. Suits well.

My only dislike is the markings on the oak handle. I don't think it fits. Just my opinion.

Really amazing, thanks for sharing.

nice blade. fit and finish is a tad rough, but i sure would hate to have it stikin in my chest.

I think it's very pretty, as far as daggers go! (Sorry, I'm a girl... I guess a somewhat girly-girl)  The scrolling part toward the tip is my favorite part. 

This might be a silly question, but what is the hook at the end of your sheath designed to do? 

No need to apologies for who you are, lol. 

20 minutes ago, Pupmaster said:

I think it's very pretty, as far as daggers go! (Sorry, I'm a girl... I guess a somewhat girly-girl)  The scrolling part toward the tip is my favorite part. 

This might be a silly question, but what is the hook at the end of your sheath designed to do? 

Come as you are,  don't apologize because that's a good question.

 The wire loop is there so you can strap the sheath to the thigh so it's easy to carry and draw,  not that I will be carrying it as it is illegal and I'm not in the bullfighting business. More of showpiece.

10 hours ago, D.IVO said:

 The wire loop is there so you can strap the sheath to the thigh so it's easy to carry and draw,  not that I will be carrying it as it is illegal and I'm not in the bullfighting business. More of showpiece.

That's what I was guessing... Thanks! 

10 hours ago, Charles R. Stevens said:

No need to apologies for who you are, lol. 

Normally I wouldn't, but I felt I had to give a reason why I wasn't exactly drooling over a dagger. :-) 

Definitely on the road to mastery.  I well know how difficult it is to get a consistent grind on a double edged blade (still struggling with it myself), so I'm impressed with your symmetry.  Is that hand engraving on the blade, or did you do that work with a rotary tool of some kind?  Was the engraving done before or after the blade hardening?

Actually the thing I'm most impressed with is the copper spacer with the crenelated top (that appears to "toggle" into the dark wood of the handle).  Is that just a dark epoxy filling those gaps, or are you doing something very tricky there?

Nice job for an early blade.  I look forward to seeing your progress.  One suggestion to consider: if you are going to remove all the traces of the original file anyway, you might consider annealing the billet first, rough grinding away the teeth, then forging in the bevels to save grinding time after rough forging. 

Beautiful work DIVO. The whole thing, sheath, grinds, engraving, all looks very well done. 

7 hours ago, Latticino said:

Definitely on the road to mastery.  I well know how difficult it is to get a consistent grind on a double edged blade (still struggling with it myself), so I'm impressed with your symmetry.  Is that hand engraving on the blade, or did you do that work with a rotary tool of some kind?  Was the engraving done before or after the blade hardening?

Actually the thing I'm most impressed with is the copper spacer with the crenelated top (that appears to "toggle" into the dark wood of the handle).  Is that just a dark epoxy filling those gaps, or are you doing something very tricky there?

Nice job for an early blade.  I look forward to seeing your progress.  One suggestion to consider: if you are going to remove all the traces of the original file anyway, you might consider annealing the billet first, rough grinding away the teeth, then forging in the bevels to save grinding time after rough forging. 

 Engraving was done with the Dremel with round diamond bit, had to re engrave the tribal because after HT removed some of the design grinding the scales. The diamond bit cuts easily even on tempered blades.

 The coppers spacer was the center of a water block from a previous graphics card, glued with clear epoxy .It resembles the walls of a castle.

Thank you all for the support and criticism.

 

Cheers