Antelope Skinner

[chipper]

Here's a knife I just finished for a friend. He killed an antelope out in the Pawnee Grasslands and wanted to do something different with the horn. I had quite a time trying to adhere the bone part of the horn to the hairy outerlayer that forms the actual antelope horn you see. Once I got that all solid with glue, I used the pewter to make everything stick together. It's been so cold here in Colorado the last few weeks, I've had a terrible time heat treating metal. This one came out soft the first time. I then made a striker and used water to quench it. The striker was also soft and I finnally figured out that heat treating at 10 degrees F is probably not a good Idea. I can't get the hot metal into the quench tank fast enough go get the metal hard. Anyway, I waited until a warm afternoon and did a second attempt at heat treating, it worked nicely that time and the metal is just right.

Thanks again for your time.
Regards
Loyd Shindelbower (Hammer Hand)
Loveland Colorado

 

[Norskie]

Looks good. If you made the sheath I have some advise for you. That belt slot has been cut with square corners. These corners will provide a place for the leather to begin tearing. A better practice is to use a round punch to form the ends of the slot. You can still do this by punching over the ends.
I'd run a saddle stitch around that slot, too. We could also talk about rounding and burnishing the edges with edge finisher, but...
Pick, pick, pick... :yakyak:
Moose

 

[chipper]

Hey, no, I appreciate the comments. I went to do the "punch the holes in the corner thing" but my individual punch broke and my hand punch wouldn't reach that deeply into the leather. Stitching's a great idea too. I built this sheath real simply as a second thought and threw it in with the deal. I don't think the fellas going to do anything with knife but put it on a shelf and look at it. That was kind of our agreement when I started. The antelope horn won't hold up under wet or inclement weather unless we do some serious work to seal it up.
It's nice to hear some critisism by the way. I generally only hear people say how nice it looks, and no one dares to mention that there's something quite wrong with it.

Thanks again.

Regards
Loyd Shindelbower

 

[Norskie]

I always wondered what prairie goat horn would be like to work with. As I understand it, the pronghorn is not a close relative of any other ungulate. So the outer horn slips, you say?
Sounds like a job for good ol' epoxy.
How does that horn feel to the hand, by the way? Would it make a good grip in the wet?
Moose

 

[RonT]

OK, I'll take a chance...could you have been better off to mount the "spur" down instead of up?
I guess it just depends on where the heel of your hand lays. My fat mitt would most likely locate the spur into the heel of mine.
R

 

[chipper]

I always wondered what prairie goat horn would be like to work with. As I understand it, the pronghorn is not a close relative of any other ungulate. So the outer horn slips, you say?
Sounds like a job for good ol' epoxy.
How does that horn feel to the hand, by the way? Would it make a good grip in the wet?
Moose

The outer horn slips a way leaving a bone that is shaped like a devils prong. It's quite a mess all covered with short hair and such. I cleaned all that up and filled the empty space with hard as nails and used expoxy to re-inforce and attach the horn to the bone. I then turned it upside down and let the expoxy run down into the gaps as it dried.

I think it would be very functional wet or dry if the fella takes the time to waterproof it. It feels real natural in ones hand with the curl facing downward.

Regards

 

[chipper]

OK, I'll take a chance...could you have been better off to mount the "spur" down instead of up?
I guess it just depends on where the heel of your hand lays. My fat mitt would most likely locate the spur into the heel of mine.
R

With the spur up, the prong horn sticks in ones forearm. Not very comforable that way. It feels real natural with the curl down.

Regards
Loyd

 

[paulvallandigham]

Lloyd: Knives are tools, and I am not clear what you are going to use that knife to do. However, if you intend to use it to skin another animal, you will not like that edge sharp all the way back to the grip. It will be too easy for your hand to slip forward, when the handle is bloody, and cut your fingers on that blade.

You con't need a long blade to skin out game, or cut things around camp. Consider grinding a finger sized cut-out( " Choil" ) in the back of the blade so that you can wrap your index finger around the back of the blade, and use the forward side of the cut-out to act as a guard to keep your hand from slipping forward. I too think you will find that point will be sticking you somewhere, either when you use the knife, or when you carry it, but you can always trim that back as you see the need to do so.

As to a sheath for the knife, I am a big fan of sheaths that cover about 90 % of the blade AND handle, because you stand so much a better chance of not losing the knife in them. You are not playing quick draw with this kind of knife, so there is no need to have so much of the handle exposed. I also find that the full length sheaths keep the knife from catching on things as I negotiate brush and forest trees.

Good effort.