Cocobolo integral

[EdgarFigaro]

Here's one that I've had kicking around for a while.
It was forged out of a piece of coil spring quite a while back.
Had ground and polished it up a while back, and heat treated it with the other integrals I'd done, clayed it all up and such, and while I was cleaning it back up that's when I'd realized that I'd made it from coil spring, so did a little etch, and from the oxides it looked like the whole blade pretty much hardened.
Well I ended up putting a handle on it and went to drill a hole for a pin and found the tang had hardened as well, which I hadn't expected.
Took handle off, used the propane torch on the handle a bit, test drilled a spot and it seemed soft, so put handle back on, well it still wasn't.
So in the end I just ended up keying up the tang a little and letting the epoxy hold it. The last time I'd tried to get the handle off it wasn't wanting to come off so figured it's unlikely it'll come off.
Since I'd tried drilling holes I finally got the handle back off, cut off the section with holes, drilled it out a bit more, and put it back on, and shaped it out.
Well something about the shape of the handle just kept bugging me plus got to feeling like it was too small, so grabbed a hammer and convinced the handle to come off. Made up a new block and put it on, and shaped it after first drawing out a design on the block that I liked.
Ended up loving the new shape. It's got a bit of a palm swell to it.

Cocobolo wood.
Water Buffalo horn spacer.
Coil spring blade, with a 500grit satin finish on the blade and 320 grit satin finish around the bolster area, the finishes are perpindicular. Liked seeing the effect on some of Gerhard Wieland's blades.
The finish isn't perfect but it turned out pretty good.
Planning on doing some more satin finished blades.

Overall I liked how it turned out.
Just need to sharpen it up.

[nifeman]

Very nice...Bud