- Joined
- Aug 25, 2009
- Messages
- 2,693
I've been itching for a while to get a crocodile dundee knife, but the closest that comes to it is the Outback, which I'm not ready to shell out 200$ for it yet. So I decided to try and get a cheaper bowie that looked like it and redo the handle.
Some surfing later I landed a Coast bowie with a 9" blade and a wooden handle, brass "s" guard and pommel:
The leather sheath is flimsy with an embossed tiger at the front; it will probably be butchered up for an upcoming leather project. I cracked the handle to begin working, and was horrified by the view:
Yep...a screw welded to a quite short tang. Even as I hate this type of tang, I was rewarded with an easy removal procedure and a threaded pommel that offered little resistance. Notice the lack of glue in that big gap under the main bit of tang... Anyway, carry on. Got a strip of 8/9 oz x 2' tanned leather and cut it up; drilling the holes in the middle was a major PITA so I ended up using a thin blade to shape them up. Next time I do this I will get the pre-drilled/shaped washers...
I cut off the top of the guard to make it single quillion, then tried to shape up the shoulders to match the contact area with the guard still loosely in place, as the welded screw is wider than the guard slot. After being satisfied about it kinda sitting square at the shoulders, used some JB weld to fix it in place and left it to dry overnight.
I used scrap pieces of kydex for spacers. Made a drawing of 2 separating lines forming a cone and numbered the bits of leather to know the exact order of each after I sorted them by size: small-medium-small. I have small hands so I wanted to taylor this handle to myself. Here's everything epoxied in place:
Since I made a kydex sheath for my KB Heavy Bowie, its original sheath became home for this blade. After a day of of rest for the epoxy to dig in, I hit it with the belt sander - first time using it, too! I'm fascinated by this tool now!
A search here on bf landed me on a leather stacking tutorial which I followed as best as I could. It was sanding with 150, 220 then crazy glue, sanding to 320, 400 then some more crazy glue, then 600, 800, finish with 1000 grit and a dab of furniture wax:
As the paper was out already, I dressed up the face of the blade on both sides up to 1200; only went up to 600 on the guard and pommel:
So this is the end result, and I am quite satisfied with it; to me it's only missing the fuller to be a close relative to the dundee knife. Now I got the itch to keep on doing more stacked leather handles and already took off the handle off of a Blackjack Anaconda III, but am stuck on what to use to create a pommel since the butt of the tang is not threaded, it's a full length tang and ends like this symbol --> ]. If I can pull this off, next on the list might be my Ontario SP5 after I strip the blade. Sorry for the crappy cell phone pics and thanks for looking!
Some surfing later I landed a Coast bowie with a 9" blade and a wooden handle, brass "s" guard and pommel:
The leather sheath is flimsy with an embossed tiger at the front; it will probably be butchered up for an upcoming leather project. I cracked the handle to begin working, and was horrified by the view:
Yep...a screw welded to a quite short tang. Even as I hate this type of tang, I was rewarded with an easy removal procedure and a threaded pommel that offered little resistance. Notice the lack of glue in that big gap under the main bit of tang... Anyway, carry on. Got a strip of 8/9 oz x 2' tanned leather and cut it up; drilling the holes in the middle was a major PITA so I ended up using a thin blade to shape them up. Next time I do this I will get the pre-drilled/shaped washers...
I cut off the top of the guard to make it single quillion, then tried to shape up the shoulders to match the contact area with the guard still loosely in place, as the welded screw is wider than the guard slot. After being satisfied about it kinda sitting square at the shoulders, used some JB weld to fix it in place and left it to dry overnight.
I used scrap pieces of kydex for spacers. Made a drawing of 2 separating lines forming a cone and numbered the bits of leather to know the exact order of each after I sorted them by size: small-medium-small. I have small hands so I wanted to taylor this handle to myself. Here's everything epoxied in place:
Since I made a kydex sheath for my KB Heavy Bowie, its original sheath became home for this blade. After a day of of rest for the epoxy to dig in, I hit it with the belt sander - first time using it, too! I'm fascinated by this tool now!
A search here on bf landed me on a leather stacking tutorial which I followed as best as I could. It was sanding with 150, 220 then crazy glue, sanding to 320, 400 then some more crazy glue, then 600, 800, finish with 1000 grit and a dab of furniture wax:
As the paper was out already, I dressed up the face of the blade on both sides up to 1200; only went up to 600 on the guard and pommel:
So this is the end result, and I am quite satisfied with it; to me it's only missing the fuller to be a close relative to the dundee knife. Now I got the itch to keep on doing more stacked leather handles and already took off the handle off of a Blackjack Anaconda III, but am stuck on what to use to create a pommel since the butt of the tang is not threaded, it's a full length tang and ends like this symbol --> ]. If I can pull this off, next on the list might be my Ontario SP5 after I strip the blade. Sorry for the crappy cell phone pics and thanks for looking!
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