All About Pocket Knives

I had been running low on handle material at the end of the winter months, so today while it was fairly warm and the wind was not blowing 30mph right in the face I had the bandsaw out and cut about 60 slabs to restock the handle material box. The material included, coca bola, ironwood, bloodwood, gunstock,ebony, a little bit of stag, and some walnut for turning projects. Some 7 1/4" thick walnut for turning jar lids and other projects. This is an old 18 inch Reliant bandsaw and with a 1/4" x 6 tpi blade the 1 1/2 hp motor cuts thru the hard wood like butter.

That’s some beautiful wood, and a fantastic old bandsaw too!

That wood on the lower right has some SWEET grain!!

That's the coca bola on the lower right, ironwood at the rear and upper left, ebony in center, and the two bigger pieces are walnut.

Beautiful wood and a very nice band saw. I don't have a band saw. I wish I did and wish I had some experience with it.
Great tool.

Bandsaws are, by far, the easiest way to cut complex shapes. My folks bought a Black and Decker one (fairly small tabletop model) back in the '80s. It's maybe an 8-10" inch model. I mostly used it myself with Pinewood Derby cars and smaller pieces of wood. That 18" can do some serious work.

I accidentally over-tightened the blade on the small Black and Decker in the shop, and snapped the blade. Luckily, I looked it up, and it's a standard size I can buy just about anywhere.

OLDE CUTLER wrote: ↑Fri Apr 23, 2021 8:14 pm That's the coca bola on the lower right, ironwood at the rear and upper left, ebony in center, and the two bigger pieces are walnut.

You have some beautiful supplies of wood there. I don't have the room to do anything like you are doing, but saw these on a website that i buy from that are knife makers and forgers suppliers. Thought members viewing this thread might find them interesting. 2 Merino Ram Horn Slabs, they would make beautiful knife handles/covers.

OC, can't wait to see the knives that they go on.

Those are very interesting Cudgee.

I should have shown some of the freshly cut slabs for comparison. This particular piece of coca bola had more pronounced lighter colored streaking than other pieces I have had.
And the gunstock, scrap cutoffs from laminated rifle stocks.

cudgee wrote: ↑Sat Apr 24, 2021 1:28 am

OLDE CUTLER wrote: ↑Fri Apr 23, 2021 8:14 pm That's the coca bola on the lower right, ironwood at the rear and upper left, ebony in center, and the two bigger pieces are walnut.

You have some beautiful supplies of wood there. I don't have the room to do anything like you are doing, but saw these on a website that i buy from that are knife makers and forgers suppliers. Thought members viewing this thread might find them interesting. 2 Merino Ram Horn Slabs, they would make beautiful knife handles/covers.

Merino-M-scaled.jpg

Yes, the rams horn is some interesting stuff. I have worked American Bison horn, and water buffalo horn, but as yet no rams horn. I also have had some Australian lacewood that I made a turned pocket watch from. As I remember it, that wood was difficult to work, wanted to splinter and required a lot of sanding to get a good surface.

I had the 18 inch Reliant bandsaw running yesterday cutting out some more duck decoy parts. These will be the wire and canvas decoys which have 3 pieces of wood in them. Bufflehead, Hooded Merganser, Redhead, Goldeye. With this style of decoy, there is less carving, but more time spent on "dressing" the bird with the wire and canvas "outfit".

It will be fun to see them when you finish them OC.

I cut out these mini ducks and geese today to have some on hand for carving over the winter. Note finger saver used to hold the small pieces.

Can't wait to see them when they are finishef.