Posted this over on TG yesterday, have a hard time getting logged in here but occasionally it goes thru... Anyway, nearly two years ago a good friend of mine asked me about building a full tang chopper similar to some of Jason Knight's great work but he was looking for some really nice handle material. One thing lead to another and it was this long before I got to it...
I forged her from a bar of Karl's 1" sq 5160 stock. As I forged the blade and progressed down the bar toward the handle section she just sort of morphed into an integral instead of the full tang knife I started out looking for. If I'd known the challenges of bringing this big ol girl to completion I may have just went ahead and drew that bar on out like I started...
I'm pretty tickled with the end product, she'll go in the mail probably tomorrow headed west to OR so Master Leathersmith Robin Severe can work his magic and dress her up a bit.
Just shy of 10 1/4" blade, 15 1/4" OAL, one heck of a nice chunk of fossil walrus ivory and gently peened NS pins. A nice just shy of sharp clip finishes her out. She's a hand full, a little bit of the "country cousin" in appearance but kinda classy in her own way...
Thanks for looking!