While in the shop today, I tried something I’d never really done before. I made a knife with a hidden tang but I made a spacer that is the same thickness as the blade and assembled with scales. Check out these photos:
Here I have two vintage (but new) Indian Ridge Traders blanks that were made in Sheffield, England. The carbon steel blanks are probably 40 years old and were never used. Most are similar to a marbles Ideal with the big fuller.
One set I did with a dyed and spalted oak, and the other is dyed walnut burl that we actually cut ourselves.
Check out the Giant Burl of Dawson County post for more on what we found in the woods.
I made a template out of black linen micarta so I can cut the 3/32″ spacer out of exotic wood.
I start cutting the spacer and drilling the holes. Notice that I took the tang of the knife and i ground small norches for the pins to nest into. all voids will be filled with epoxy.
The result is a super cool layup with the tang here in a bright piece of osage.
The front of the knife looks like this. The excess handle material will be ground down to the shaped spacer.
Gonna be cool!
And here is the handle once it has been shaped
Spine Shot
Back End
Belly of the handle
