Bit of decorative file work, just because.
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Found an old scrap of bridle leather from back in my saddle-making days.
Realised just how bad my eyesight has gotten while hand-stitching it. ( Bad 
)
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Really nice knife you’ve made there, looks like you nailed the vine file work. Is that osage orange that you used for the scales? It’s amazing what can be made with simple tools, hard work and determination. 
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A mate who specialises in timber flooring asked what timber that was, when I replied “firewood” he grimaced. It was a fork in the limb of a narrow-leaf ironbark tree that I was cutting up for firewood. I liked the “herring-bone” grain that I found after splitting it so I sliced it up on the table saw. Unfortunately, the best of the grain had cracks too close together to get the scales out of. That was the best of what was left.
It started life as a kit I purchased in the U.S some time ago. The blank was annealed, so it was soft enough to cut to profile and work by hand before hardening and tempering. There was about 15 hours of filing plus about 10 hours of sanding to get the blade to where I was happy with it. I didn’t bother to re-polish it after tempering, as I said, I liked the blueing.
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And then people wonder why custom knives cost more than factory stuff…
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Made some covers for some leather tools that keep biting my fingers when looking for them in the drawer. Good use of scraps and practice for dyeing, stiching and colour (un) matching.
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Nice work @JizzFlinger , the stamp work on the green one looks bloody awesome mate !
@danmac, as much as its a lot of work to hand file and finish a knife. I think it’s how everyone should start out, or at the very least how they should make the first one. You learn a lot from doing it and I think all the hard work makes it that bit more special imo. I’ve met a couple of blokes over the years that had been making knives for many years and they wouldn’t do it any other way.
@Bent_arrow, yeah, a young bloke that works at the same place as my wife asked how much to make him one. When I said that, realistically, about $400 he wasn’t interested any more, fancy that.
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Yeah everyone wants things for free, or next to nothing thanks to China. But these are handcrafted also, something the young bloke dont underdtand
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I asked a mate who’s into wood work about how much it would be to make a dining table, that he made as a present for someone. He (has a different career) said, realistically, about $10k and broke down his time and materials. And it made perfect sense. Another guy I know (also not his career) showed me something he made (wood working) and sold for thousands, adding that in terms of time he effectively worked for $3/hr. Until people get exposed to it and understand the effort and skills required to produce something of quality and one of a kind just don’t know. Nothing to do with mass produced thing and everything to do with appreciation of skill, time and whatever it is you’re getting. Appreciation like this, dare I say, only comes with age.
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My father has been making furniture for years and has always faced this problem.
People want to compare a Harvey Norman stained pine table for $600 to a solid hardwood table that has close to $1000 or more of timber in it before you so much as touch a saw.
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And the silly part is, no one wants well built second hand furniture, they’d rather buy new junk
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They want it, they don’t want to pay for it. You basically have to give it away.
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@Supaduke. Any chance you could post some pics of some of the stuff your dad made?, I would love to see some.
In the mean time here’s some other stuff I enjoy making on the lathe, some incorporating a little carving with the arbourtec on the grinder (for anyone that doesn’t know what the carving tool I’m talking about is…)… think cross between chainsaw chain and grinding wheel, spinning at 10,000 + rpm…
If that doesn’t make the hair’s on ya sack stand up, your more of a man than me… 
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I will have to find some photos or get Mum to send me some, but will do.
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I’m just going to drop this here because I stumbled across it and thought, fark me. What an awesome use for an old barrel. How cool would it be to make a hunting knife from this process…?.. meh, maybe it’s just me.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?index=3633&list=LLfzh6rEpHg2AyrwZ7whmT-A&v=1raX0Z0Ubro
Watch both episodes if your interested. Damn, tossed out several old barrel’s I had laying around a while back. Could have experimented with them… 
…y
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The chance of a tank attack is never zero.
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May come in handy mate given the way the Chinese are behaving.
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This one popped up the other day while i was wandering down the youtube rabbit hole. I thought it was pretty cool, and apart from the forge all done with gear most handy types would have in the shed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nl0FLWAq9Kw
@Gregfiddich Love the tank trap, it just needs “Wrong way go back” written on it in Chinese.
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