An interesting and challenging project!

Went to supper at my Sister's place tonite. While there, my brother-in-law, Brian- to whom I had given one of my knives for Christmas- asked if I could repair or restore this old machete-style knife from his home-land in Guam:

It had been truly home-crafted for him by a relative there. Im not sure out of what steel the blade was hammered from- possibly an old leaf spring ? It is much thicker than a typical machete blade is normally made of.


The handle scales had been carved and sanded out of Water Buffalo horn.

But, over the years, it seems that water had made it's way into some of the gaps between the handle and the full tang, resulting in the rusting of the cross-pins that run through the handles, and the tang, making them quiet loose.

This thing is truly massive- the blade is right around 14 inches in length, and tapers from the tang to the tip from roughly 1/4th inch, near the handle.

Here it is compared to my Modern Pugio combat/field knife model: (of which Opus and Splinter received the 1st two that I made)

And next to one of my soon-to-come large knives..

So, over the next several days, I will try to find the best way to remove the handles, and their pins-without damaging the handles. Once done, I'll look over the tang, and see what needs to be done underneath the handles to fix things up a bit, and then I will re-attach the handles, and seal the gaps.

After that, I plan to clean up and hone the blade as best I can, and I plan to make a nice, rugged sheath for this Beastie !

Rings

While waiting for my steel to arrive, I decided to try something with some of the odd-sized, left-over woods from past knife handles.

Thought I'd try a shot at making rings out of the woods. For the 1st prototype, I used some Macassar Ebony.

Need to cut off some of the excess on the corners to speed up the rounding of it...

After a bit of rough-sanding @ 60 grit...

And some finer sanding @ 200 grit

I've since sanded up to 900 grit, and applied the 1st coat of Tung Oil.. we'll check in a bit, and see how it looks after the Oil cures..

New items coming soon

Am awaiting the arrival of some Damascus steel for 2 knives- fingers crossed it may arrive today, I hope..

Also awaiting the arrival of the material for 2 other knives and another new goodie to offer.. stay tuned.

Items made for Christmas Gifts

For Christmas, I made some knives with pouches, some leather notebooks, and some belts as gifts for family.

Hello, and welcome to my blog

I am Martinus. In mid-2011, I decided I wanted a knife. But not a commercial/off-the-shelf one. So, I decided to build my own.
Lacking any prior experience or tools for doing so, I had to figure this all out from scratch.

Once built, I realized that this knife would not fit in any off-the-shelf sheaths. So, I would have to figure out and make this from scratch as well. Since I was venturing into creating a leather sheath for my knife, I would also do the same for a holster for my full-size, high-capacity .45 automatic for which I had been unable to find a leather holster that fit it properly.

And so, it all began. I posted some pics of these builds to a message board, and some of my friends asked if I could make some of my knives and sheaths for them as well. Other folks had seen this work, and asked if I could make some sheaths for knives they already owned. And, so I did.

I make my knife handles of either Paracord, or woods such as Cocobolo, Walnut, Cherry, Mahogany, Lacewood, Macassar Ebony, etc.

And then I sand them down to shape by hand and with a Dremel tool

And now I've totally caught the bug. I now make and sell custom knives, sheaths, holsters and other items as requested.
For knives, customers can currently choose from a couple of designs, and select what woods they want for the handles. For sheaths, holsters, magazine pouches, and belts, customers can choose left or right-hand carry, and color of dyes. 
Prices vary from item to item and depend mostly on material choices. I will post the range of items I can make soon.