My first completed knives

I beat RR spikes all day and finished my first three knives that I have been working on. As promised here is the URL to see the knives. The pics are not great but you can see pretty good. "teach a man to fish and he can feed the world...teach a man to make a knife and he becomes obsessed"......Thank God!!!!!!

home.att.net/~calbow/knife1.jpg
home.att.net/~calbow/knife2.jpg
home.att.net/~calbow/knife3.jpg
home.att.net/~calbow/knife4.jpg
home.att.net/~calbow/knife5.jpg

Have a look and all comments welcome. Thankd

REALLY NICE WORK FOR YOUR FIRST KNIVES, CALVIN. I REALLY LIKE THE UPSWEPT BLADE AND THE 4 FINGER GROOVES. WHAT STEEL AND GRIND AND DID YOU DO IT ALL BY HAND?
KEN (WWJD)

Hi Ken
The steel is OCB. That is Oregon Chain Saw Bar. I think that it is O1 but have no way of knowing for sure. I heat treated it like O1 and it worked. I did most of the work by hand. Being a newbie I discovered that in order to drill chain saw bar one must anneal it first. Before learning that lesson I tried to drill the bar with cobalt and other drill bits in a press to no avail. I just runed a bunch of expensive bits. I designed the shape of the blades and handles. Just used what appealed to me, what looked functional and what felt good and seemed to have a good heft to it when I cut the blanks out. I used files and a pedal grind stone to grind the blades. Tried to make as close to a flat grind as my limited experience would allow. Used deer horn for the handle on the small skinner. Did not fight the curve in itj just went with the flow. Wood handles on the other two came from pallets shipped from Africa. I dont know the name of the wood but I have been saving it in the shop for years. I get the pallets from a friend who imports stuff. It must be valuable wood because lots of folks offer me money for some of it. I am going to try to find out what it is when I get a chance. I boiled the wood scales in Denmark Oil to stabilize them before installing them. I like to use bone for handles but I dod not have any. I am trying to do the Neo Tribal thing too. Have a forge and am beating out some blades from High Carbon RR spikes. I will post when I have something to show. Thanks for the comments. Have a nice day and remember.........the 58,000 Americans that did not return from Southeast Aisa and all the Americans that made the ultimate scarifice so that I might live without a collar of opression around my neck.

RIGHT ON CALVIN, DELTA BOAT SKIPPER IN 62 AND 63. WISH YOU WOULD FIND OUT ABOUT THE PALLET WOOD, I WOULD LIKE TO GET SOME.
KEN (WWJD)

Calvin, a fine first effort!! Keep it up and don't be afraid to try new things and new ideas in your knife making.

Have fun!!!

Thanks Ken and Montd
I will let you know when I find out about the pallet wood and I will be glad to share with you. Thanks for the good comments.