"Beaver tail" folder.

[Joe Yanta]

The blade of this knife is forged from 1095 high carbon steel. I heat treated it using a Paragon oven and quenched it in Brownells Tough Quench, it was then double tempered.

The back of the blade I filed simple chevrons using a needle file.

The lanyard ring is 1/8" iron rod. Bending it around and into its hole in the blade was quite a challenge.

I flattened a portion of the crown of the antler and carved the shape of the beaver tail. The detail of the tail was done by using a needle file.

The the blade length is 3 1/8", overall length is 7 3/8" open. Iron pins are 1/8" iron. After taking the pictures I see I still need to add some patina to the pins.

If you folks get tired of me posting these, let me know and I will go lay down by my dish.

As usual, your comments are appreciated and most welcom. :hatsoff:

Joe

 

[Hawken Dan]

Nice looking there Joe.Fine workmanship :hatsoff:

Daniel

 

[RickD]

If you ever offer any for sale let me know

 

[paulvallandigham]

Very nice workmanship, and Artistry, Joe. Keep it up. :hatsoff:

 

[david50]

thats cool! :thumbsup:

 

[PitchyPine]

Very nice indeed. :thumbsup:

 

[smo]

Great work Joe :bow:

 

[agill]

Nice work! :hatsoff:

 

[rabjr]

Thats a neat knife Joe. :thumbsup:

 

[Joe Yanta]

Thanks Gents for all your fine comments, I appreciate them.

It is a drizzly day here in Colorado yet perfect to be out in the garage with the forge going. I forged this tiny little lanyard hook this afternoon.

Although I am not totally convinced that carrying a knife around your neck was widely practiced. I've tried it and it always seems to be in the way especially when your bending over. This little hook will allow the knife to be carried on a lanyard along the side under the arm or the hook could be even tied or sewn to the strap of the shooting pouch.

Thanks again for your comments.

Joe

 

[JamesG]

Looks great i like the file work alot

 

[wwpete52]

Excellent!!!

 

[longshot47]

Very convincin' work! :thumbsup:

 

[Minuteman]

I wanna know how you cut the slot straight and square to the fulcrum point. I mean the pin and the slot have to be at 90 degrees to each other or the blade will bind in the handle. That's experience talking by the way. I've only tried one but it didn't turn out well. I didn't get the hole square to the slot.
How did you do it?

 

[Joe Yanta]

Minuteman your correct. The pin must be absolutely square to the blade.

Firstly I always make the blade fit the handle and not vice-versa. I try to make only minimal modifications to what nature has provided me to work with, I cannot improve on it.

After I have the antler I am going to use. I study it for what is the best blade travel for the slot along with how it will feel in the hand.

To find the slot. I put the handle in the jaws of my vise that are padded with heavy leather. I take one of those thin Stanley rules about 6" in length and lay it over the handle and along the slot. Using a pencil point for my target on the handle, I sight down the edge of the rule looking at my target along the proposed slot. I then make a small dash with the pencil to mark the slot. I do this the intire length of the proposed slot.

I then use a small needle file in the shape of a knife blade to connect the dashes and file a shallow groove along the proposed slot. This shallow groove will keep my Dremel tool from drifting around and ruining the handle. I use a thin "cut off" wheel on the Dremel mandrel. Slowly deepen the groove with Dremel tool (I would recomend wearing at least a particle mask. Breathing the antler dust can give you some discomfort for a couple of days. I wear a light weight Mine Safety dust mask).

After your groove is deep enough do prevent you from slipping out you can get a little more western with it but stop short of what you need.

I then turn the handle on end so I can cut the tang slot. Again using the rule and a pencil for my target I mark the handle for my slot. The depth of the tang slot depends on how big your tang is going to be.

Until you have made a couple of these I would suggest you take your handle and lay it down on a piece of clear paper and trace the outline of your handle. Then locate an arbitrary pivot point on the tracing. With a peice of card board from a cereal box cut out your blade. Use a straight pin for a pivot and see what kind of movement your blade is going to have with the handle. Pay close attention to the back of your handle. You dont want your blade coming out the back of your handle. Doing your paper work at this point will save you a tremendous amount of frustration in the future.

Back to the tang slot on the handle. I use a hack saw to cut the slot. Then I use an agressive needle file to file the slot. Sometimes, depending on the blade thickness, you can cut your slot with three hacksaw blades. You first cut a single pass with the hack saw. Then take you blade out and put one blade in with teeth out, then one blade with the teeth to the back of the saw, then the third blade with the teeth out. The blade in the middle you put in backwards acts like a guide in the already cut slot for the two outside blades cut the slot.

Now Minuteman to answer your question. Let us say you are using 1/8" blade material and you have an 1/8" tang slot. Take a piece of scrap 1/8 material and insert into the tang slot. This is going to be your axis. Hope you have at least a simple drill press. Using a drill press vise set your handle in it and use padding to keep from maring the handle. I then use the rule and measure from the top of the jaws of the vise to the 1/8" material that is an extension of tang slot. It might take a few minutes for you to get both planes of the axis as near as perfect as you can. You patience here will bring great rewards :grin: . Your now ready to drill your pivot hole you have located on your handle.

You can now finish your slot a little more using your carboard blade as a guide.

When it comes time to drill the pivot hole in your blade you might be able to put your blade in your handle and drill the hole using the handle as a guide. If this is the case you can take a few moments to run out a buy a couple of lottery tickets because today is your lucky day.

If not, and your like me, you are going to have to mark the blade. While it is perfectly aligned in the handle, with a ultra thin point marker and mark your hole. Then center punch the mark to drill your hole. If your handle was square when you drilled the pivot hole in it, the hole in your blade will be square too.

Hopefully Minuteman I wasn't to long winded on this and didn't confuse you. I will be happy to help.

Thanks for your question, it was a good'un.

Joe

 

[paulvallandigham]

Joe: You have much more confidence in drilling that center hole than I do.

I would suggest for the first time doing this that you drill a pilot hole in the tang of the blade, and then put the blade back into the handle to check to see how centered that pilot hole IS! For pilot holes, I try to use a drill bit that is just big enough to allow the cutting edge on the nose of the drill bit I will use to finish the hole, to fit in the pilot hole. If I find that I have not drilled the pilot hole centered, I use an " in-between drill" bit to move the hole to center, before making the final hole.

I also do the same thing with the holes in the handle, using a smaller bit size than the final drill I intend to use. That way, if the two holes are not at exact right angles to the hole in the blade, all three holes can be drilled together to straighten them out. I drill the hole in the tang of the blade to final dimension first, then set it into the handle, clamp it, and then drill one side of the handle, and then the other, and then push the drill thru both sides of the handle and tang.

 

[Joe Yanta]

Paul, some great advise you point out.

The problem I have is I tend to be heavy handed on the drill press. Even when I dont want to be and and pay attention I still manage to break 1/16" and 3/32" drill bits in my blades. I dont know if it is my press or me. My drill press is a super heavy duty c. 1930's Rice press with a 6:1 gear reduction electric motor and then going through probably a 4 or 5 to 1 pully reduction. I think the last time I stared at it long enough it was running about 40 rpm. Anyway, I break far less bits when I use bigger bits.

Now this might be Taboo to mention this. I think anyone who has made more than just one knife has broken drill bits off into untreated knife blades and handles. I know I have spent several afternoons of my life trying to unscrew broken drill bits out stuff. :redface:

Thanks Paul.

Joe

 

[paulvallandigham]

I too have sinned, Joe. But I had a father who would have my scalp if I broke a bit, and I had to pay for the replacement bit out of my allowance, which I earned doing chores for him. Now, back when I was being taught the value of a dollar, bits could be bought for less than a dollar- considerably less. Today, the dollar doesn't seem to go as far, although drill bits are still comparatively cheaper now than they were in the 1950s, and '60s.

The same rule applied in my High School Shop classes. If you broke it, you paid for it! So, I took extra care to not break bits. I saw plenty of them broken in Shop class, however, by guys who just would not listen and watch the instructor show how to use a bit, or drill tap properly.

I noticed, BTW, that instead of drilling the hole square to the sides of the antler, you ended up drilling at an angle to compensate for the curve in the antler to square the hole to the blade. I have had to do this a couple of times, and the amount of time taken to set up the workpiece in a drill press vise, using shims to hold it correctly is truly the worst part of the job.

 

[Joe Yanta]

Here is the sheath. The wrapping around the sheath is the strap for carry around the neck strap with leather button and hook.

Joe

 

[wirehairman]

I'm not a big knife guy like some, but that knife is awesome. :hatsoff: