Carving Stag Handle

[NuViking]

For the past month I have been working on my first complete neo tribal Knife. I stared by carving a shed deer antler with crown attached. I wanted to give it a smooth look with a sliight criss cross pattern looking as though it had leather thongs wrapped arround it. But on closer inspection one would see the grain of the antler.
I started scaping off the exsess with a cheap set of carving knives but this was going slow.So today I came up with an idea while buffing some blades for a gun show in Regina Sask this january
I burned arround the edge of the outline with a propane torch and found it much easyer to scatch off the ashes and sand it smooth than to keep carving with a knife that I well be replacing with one that I well make.
As son as I figure out how to make my pics smaller I wel send photos of this.

[Dana Acker]

Looking gorward to seeing some photos. I've never had much luck with fire and antlers. Guess you have to move fast to avoid cracking from heat. Been there and done that.

[NuViking]

Hi Dana. Checked out your websit and enjoyed it. well be chatting with you more. I was using a fairly fot propane tip turned to medium high. I was touching the tip of the blue flame about a quater of an inchbelow where I wanted to burn. Yes I moved the torch pretty fast but didnt have any problems with cracking like I have on the buffing wheel if I was getting a little to aggressive. Yesterday I tryed lightly burning another stag handle and today I am going to sand it dry with 600 grit and see what that looks like. I may have to cheat with buffing. Havent got my neo tribal lathe done yet. I am also conveting an old wood lathe into a treadle lathe with belt sander and lapwheel. All I had to do was remove the chuck and slide the lapwheel on. wish all my projects went that smooth.

[Dana Acker]

Thanks for the kind words on the website--Alex/Atlanta Virtual deserves the credit. I've been having a lot of new photos taken and hope to really update it soon. Most of the photos are 10 years old.

Another trick you might want to play with some time is to soak your antler in potassium permanganate (an oxidizing agent) which will stain it brown--then try your carving. I've not done it but I'd bet the contrast would be striking.