Fish Knife for my Brother-In-Law

Vaughn McMillan

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Here's my second attempt at making a knife. OK, maybe not making it, but gluing a handle on a blade blank and shaping it to fit.

This is a lacewood handle on a cryo treated 'Idaho Trout Fillet' blank from www.texasknife.com. The 'VM' on the blade is laser engraved by Pete Simmons, using a scanned image of my handwritten initials. I just used BLO for the finish. I was a bit leery of using a membrane finish, since it'll potentially wear off and be hard to repair. With BLO, it can be refreshed as needed, but it should still stand up to use...

Jim's Knife 03 - 800.jpg

The typical handle on one of these knives is symmetrical, but after seeing good reactions to the sculpted handle on my dad's brisket knife, I decided to sculpt this one a bit, too. It doesn't show real well in the pics, but the two sides are different from each other. Here's a shot of the top of the handle. The edge grain of the lacewood sure looks like fish scales to me...

Jim's Knife 02 - 800.jpg

And here's one of the bottom. The apparent curve in the blade is camera distortion, but you can still see how the shaping is different on the two sides of the handle...

Jim's Knife 01 - 800.jpg

I used 'mosaic' pins on this one. (Also from the same supplier.) I think they go nicely with the lacewood. This shot shows one of the pins, and also show's Pete's handiwork a bit better:

Jim's Knife 04 - 800.jpg

My sis and her husband will be arriving in a couple days for a visit, and this will be a belated birthday gift to my BIL. I also have a sheath for this knife, but it's unfinished leather at this point. My BIL enjoys doing leatherwork, so I'll let him decide how he wants to stain or otherwise finish it. He's a very avid fisherman, so I suspect this knife will get a lot of use.

Comments, questions, and critiques are all welcome. :wave:
 
That is beautiful. I have friends who fish . . . the knife will get a lot of use. The "my brother made it for me" story will be told and retold only to grow in size and detail as the mighty fishermen while away the hours between nibbles.
 
Vaughn, I'm a fisherman too,(only when the weather is nice :)), and I have such a simular knive, I got it from my dad a long time ago, and it's a very practical and useful knive.
Your brother in low will be grateful to get this beautiful knive as a late birthday present.
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Nice Frame

Vaughn:

That is a very nice frame you put around those beautiful initials!!

This one was easy. It was messing up your Dad's knife doing the engraving that worried me.
 
Very nice execution of a very nice idea. Of course , the last time I went out fishing, I had one much bigger than that but lost it:D
 
Vaughn, that is GREAT!! Ever since you posted the knife you made for your Dad, I've been kicking around the idea of making a knife for MY brother-in-law, but wasn't sure what type I would make. Now I know it'll be a fishing knife! :thumb:

My question is, what are the rough dimensions of the scales, before you start the shaping process?

Thanks!

Keith
 
Thanks guys. My sis saw a few sneak peek pics this morning, and she figures it'll go over well. ;)
...My question is, what are the rough dimensions of the scales, before you start the shaping process?

Thanks!

Keith

Without going out the the shop to measure, I'd guess the scales were about 1 1/2" x 4 1/2", and about 3/8" to 1/2" thick. (I used some leftover wood from a box I made for my ex-wife a couple years ago.) I used double-sided tape to temporarily stack the two scales and hold them together. Next, I traced out the rough handle shape onto the top of the stack, then cut out the shape about 1/8" or so outside the traced lines. Then, using the blank as a guide, I drilled through the stacked scales for the pins on the drill press. One tip I picked up on the Web was to shape and finish sand the front end of the handle where it meets the blade before gluing it all together, since it's nearly impossible afterwards. The rest of the shaping happened after the scales were attached with epoxy.
 
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