As many of you know I have a passion for all things old, it goes with my age LoL. I love the life, tools, weapons, cooking styles, clothing etc from the mountain man era. While I will still make some stock reduction knives, over the next while I will be turning my skills to reproduce some old style knifes. This small neck knife, photos below, was a starting point.
The knife is made from a small piece of car spring steel, most likely 5160 grade high carbon steel. The blade is acid etched to age it. The handle is an antler tine and the ferrule is aluminium. Aluminium wouldn't be authentic to the period, however, in the absence of pewter to melt and cast at the time of making, I used aluminium as a substitute. Future knives ferrules will be moulded in pewter.
The sheath leather was ages using a method of a leather expert and friend in America, (Eric VanAlstine). Eric makes museum quality leather items that are very authentic, due to much research he has put into the subject. In respect to Eric, I will not discuss the process of distressing the leather. However, the small piece of hide on the top, I did this my own way which was done by applying stone pressure and layers of dyes.
I hope you like this little gem. It is so sharp that when making the sheath I lined the inside with rawhide to reduce the risk of the knife cutting through the sheath.
Car coil spring (5160?)
Acid etched blade & razer sharp
Now for the sheath. This process takes a lot of time and stitching it with artificial sinew gives it that aged look of the frontier.
