First try at a Sgian Duhb

[piper128]

I'm trying my hand at knife making, in the simplest sense. I purchased a few blade blanks off eBay, and acquired some deer antler from a friend.

Heres the chunk of antler, cut, polished, and ready for drilling.

image.jpg

The crown polished up pretty well.

image.jpg

The hole for the tang drilled and shaped.

image.jpg

And as a mock-up, with the blade seated.

image.jpg

The he next step will be to polish the business end of the horn,set the blade with some epoxy, and let it cure.

As as this is a gift for my 8 year old boy, I will not be sharpening the blade. The last step is going to be getting ionmhainn mhac engraved p the blade.

I certainly seesome some things I'll be doing differently. The blade isn't quite centered, leaning over the front of the grip a hair. I'll cut with a finer toothed saw, and take my time a little more. That will make polishing a little easier. That's about it. Let me know what you think. I'll add pics of the set blade, and the final product soon.

[Father Bill]

I'm sure it's nice, Piper, but none of the pictures are there. We've been having picture problems but usually we at least get a link. Try again please, we'd surely love to see your work.

[bdkilted]

The pictures seems to have disappeared. Did you move them?

[piper128]

Edited. Hope that works.

[Mike S]

Very nice! Welcome to the forums, and thanks for kicking off with some DIY and photos.

I really like the stag antler handle material for a daytime Sgian too. I made one of these myself a few years back:





And a dirk to match:

[piper128]

What type of stag did those come from? About the only deer readily available near me is white tail, and nobody is going to give up any real big antlers, so I'm running into issues with the beams being long enough, straight enough, and thick enough to use as a handle. I really like the darkness of the crown. What did you polish it with?

[piper128]

Or is that a cap of some sort?

[Mike S]

It is Indian stag, and that is a polished nickel silver pommel cap.

You can get some really nice pieces of this crown stag from Dixie Gun Works:

http://www.dixiegunworks.com/product...ducts_id=14554
http://www.dixiegunworks.com/product...oducts_id=1596

[Father Bill]

Piper, you're doing beautiful work, as are the rest of you. I love staghorn sghians!

[piper128]

Thanks, gents. I believe my next experiment is going to be fashioning one from a bit of a scotch cask. Though I'm thinking I may need my own staghorn sgian first. I have at least two more blades to use up!