From the local environment

[templehound]

Inspired by a comment of Frosty I took the opportunity to post a thread about a knife made of materials from the local environment.

A while ago I had to make a plain fixed blade with black textured horn handle slabs.

Normally that is a kind of handle material I do not think of certain knives because of the lack of suitable material.

Of course there are tons of waterbuffalo horns in Thailand but it is not available on every corner and if it is for sale every knife turns out different because of the strong individuality of the horn material.

So different that you had to adapt and to accept the individuality of the resulting knife.

But I got lucky and there is one local hardware store on our island that offered several buffalo skulls for sale.

The same store sells lawnmover blades and  after some research I learned that the blades are most likely  produced from SK5.

Some spark pictures support the assumption of SK5 aka W108. A simple tool steel that most of us are very familiar with.

Thailand has its own steel production so i guess that the blades are not Japanese or Chinese imports.

Even after annealing and rehardening they stood perfectly straight, took  about 60 HRC's and measuring 2 mm in thickness which is just enough for a small fixed blade....actually I bought two blades, one was longer from a different brand it measured 2,5 mm in width, which is very rare because those blades normally not thicker than 2,0 mm so I bought it too.It was completely covered in rust and the shop owner was slightly confused that I bought it, and he kindly lowered the price.

Each blade cost about 9 dollars, 16 inch long and 3,5 inches wide will result in four small fixed blades.The buffalo skull cost about 70 dollars which is comparatively

expensive, but I will get out about 4-5 knives of it which makes it acceptable.

And of course the hardware store sells steel nails...so the three main materials for a small user were just available.Except the buffalo leather for the sheath is from south Bangkok Samut Prakhan area. ....I had to cheat on that.

stay safe

cheers

 

 

[Goods]

Great work! Have you shown the hardware store owner? He would probably be very interested in this result. Store owners don’t often get to see the results of the sales.

Keep it fun,

David

[anvil]

Very cool story and a very nice knife!

[1forgeur]

 Very nice. Looks like there will be a lot of grip in the handle.

[JHCC]

Really nice, and a good demonstration of making the best of what's available. The contrasting textures on the handle are very cool.

Are there any parts of the skull where the bone is thick or dense enough to be of use?

[NoGoodWithUsernames]

Looks great! Would you be able to use epoxy to stabilize the interior part of the horn for handles as well? That looks like it would make a very interesting looking piece as well. 

[Frosty]

Nice knife, I like it a lot. I'm wondering if or how well the ground portions of the handle would take a polish? Polishing the layers in the horn visible in the close up might be an attractive option. 

Frosty The Lucky.

[gewoon ik]

Cool. 

[Les L]

Another piece of art! I enjoyed the story of creating it, thanks for sharing 

[templehound]

Thank You very much for the fine comments, Gentlemen!

On 8/24/2023 at 7:22 PM, Goods said:

Great work! Have you shown the hardware store owner? He would probably be very interested in this result. Store owners don’t often get to see the results of the sales.

Keep it fun,

David

That I'll better do not out of different reasons....Thanks, Goods!

On 8/24/2023 at 10:05 PM, anvil said:

Very cool story and a very nice knife!

Thanks, Anvil!

On 8/24/2023 at 10:10 PM, 1forgeur said:

 Very nice. Looks like there will be a lot of grip in the handle.

....handles very well, kind of ergonomic, Thank You 1forgeur!

On 8/24/2023 at 11:35 PM, JHCC said:

 

Are there any parts of the skull where the bone is thick or dense enough to be of use?

Unfortunately not...aside from that skull bones tend to be rather too brittle.

Thank you JHCC!

On 8/25/2023 at 1:30 AM, NoGoodWithUsernames said:

Looks great! Would you be able to use epoxy to stabilize the interior part of the horn for handles as well? That looks like it would make a very interesting looking piece as well. 

Of course that would be a option, but I do not like the outcoming results.Looking to epoxy with or with out coloring the epoxy.

But there are no good dog treats in Thailand, just some processed plastik meat stuff.So I always give this to my dogs, they love it!

Thank You Nogoodwithusernames!

On 8/25/2023 at 2:07 AM, Frosty said:

Nice knife, I like it a lot. I'm wondering if or how well the ground portions of the handle would take a polish? Polishing the layers in the horn visible in the close up might be an attractive option. 

I do not polish natural handle materials of different reasons. I just sand it to grit 800-100 and then oil it.

Polishing swallows all the colors because of the light reflection.Polished will look deeper but by touching looking not so good anymore.

If you only sand and oil it it has much more saturation in the colores and do not look worse by touching.

I made an example with a piece of Buffalo horn, I hope it will show what I mean. Left side polished right side only sanded.

Thanks Frosty!

 

 

 

On 8/25/2023 at 2:39 AM, gewoon ik said:

Cool. 

THanks gewoon!

On 8/26/2023 at 3:52 AM, Les L said:

Another piece of art! I enjoyed the story of creating it, thanks for sharing 

Thank you, Les L

[Frosty]

Thanks for addressing my idea, I appreciate it. It's almost impossible to see what you describe in a picture on my computer screen, all I can see of the polished side is reflections of the plants. I'd like to hold the sample in my hands myself but that's not possible and it's unlikely I'll ever make horn handles to polish and see. 

Thanks again for sharing your work and knowledge.

Frosty The Lucky.