From rotten leather to stag

[orvet]

Here is a nice, lightly used Western that I repaired for a customer last month.
The knife had been well cared for (except the leather handle) and had not been used much.
TI removed the leather ring handles and replaced the handles with some nice Sambar stag.

My customer was very pleased with it and had to take it on a trip to show off to some relatives.
It was very much like a knife his dad or granddad had owned.

Hope y'all enjoy the pictures.

And of course the knife still had the original Western factory sheath.

[TripleF]

Top notch as always Dale!!!

[Shearer]

Like it Dale.
I go with TripleF " top notch"

Grant

[philco]

Dale that knife looks fantastic.

The stag has a coloration that I associate with older knives. Did you toast it, dye it, or was it already like that ?

[Colonel26]

Very classy. I love it.

[glennbad]

Beautiful, Dale! Looks like a factory job.

[RalphAlsip]

Dale, beautiful work and beautiful result

[orvet]

Thanks guys , I appreciate the encouragement.

As those of you who make or repair knives know, finding quality stag is becoming more and more difficult and expensive. Often there is a very dark outer coloration on some stag and the white layer under it. For most applications that coloration is less than optimum.
This stag came from a knife maker friend in the UK. I believe he told me he got it from a company in Scotland, not the first place I think of when sourcing stag. LOL

In this case I sanded the stag to 4000 grit, polished it, removed any waxy residue from the compound with 98% isopropal alcohol and then dyed the stag and polished it again. It is quite a bit of work, but I feel the results are worth the effort.

Thanks again.
Dale

[Phin Spencer]

Dale Nice job! What kind of dye did you use? I have been toasting elk horn
and it is very hard to get it even,
regards
Phin

[#goldpan]

Dale you have a way with stag That knife is beautiful!

Randy

[muskrat man]

Can't go wrong with a stag western

[treefarmer]

Might fine, Dale, as usual .
Treefarmer

[Cowdiddly]

Excellent work Orvet. Now I hope you understand why I withdrew from the knife roundtable. It was not the rest of you guys skills that I was worried about like you seem to have thought... it was mine. You seem to have been offended by my withdraw so I just let it die down and did not want to trash up the thread explaining. I thought we were going to make a knife from scratch.
I worked in a metallurgy lab at a steel mill for 6 yrs and welded for 30. I know my stuff about forging and heat treating, quenching and tempering and have mastered 3-4 steels and can pound out a blade to be proud of. I don't like doing it unless I;m in the mood and have nothing bothering me and have 4-5 guys bugging me to make them one. I just really like to do it for myself. But when it comes to handles, file work and redoing pocket knives and such I just am not that talented. In fact... I just plain sux at it. More of a bull in a china closet kinda guy. lol

. Ill post up some of my cornbread handle work one day on some excellent forge work and you will see what I mean. Matter of fact, I have an antler handle I made on the exact same knife. It looks nowhere near that level. lol

Nice job looks like it was done at the factory.

[garyflorida]

Very good. How did you make the spacers? glue the material together in a sandwich and slice down the middle? Sand to finish by hand or 2" strip sander machine?

Gary

[orvet]

Dale Nice job! What kind of dye did you use?

I use potassium permanganate. The more you use it the better results you can get with it.
It just takes a bit of experimentation.

[coffeecup]

As those of you who make or repair knives know, finding quality stag is becoming more and more difficult and expensive. Often there is a very dark outer coloration on some stag and the white layer under it. For most applications that coloration is less than optimum.

Finding even mediocre stag is becoming more difficult and expensive. Uneven thickness and curvature seems more of a problem than coloration. I can fix the color, but the excessive/uneven thickness caused when the natural curvature of the antlers is slabbed is more problematic. As time and funds allow I've been trying to work out how the old makers were doing it, but it is slow going.