Roots and Blood Knife; 2020 the Final Cut!
Have you ever fantasized about pulling a legendary blade out of the forge fire to rival the likes of Excalibur, Sting, or Honjo Masamune? How about creating a knife in any humble way at all? I’ve been tempted to try for quite some time, but without a forge how does one build a knife? For starters, you can grab a knife blank and create the scales (handle) to make a unique and usable tool that may also make for a beautiful keepsake.
Central Oregon Red Jasper with the outdoor carving station and hand saw to cut the form.
Central Oregon Petrified Wood
Rockhounding, camping, and geology are interests that my family share and are a source of great adventures when we get together. To commemorate that, I decided that it would be really cool to make a knife for my dad out of material that I got while we were all together in Central Oregon. I chose Red Jasper to represent blood and Petrified Wood to represent roots.
Petrified Wood slab ready to saw.
The first step is to get my hands on a knife blank and then find or make slabs of rock that will fit for the knives’ scales. The next task is to cut the material out of the slabs in the shape of the knife scales. Without a trim saw, this had to be done with a jewelers’ saw, a piano wire coated with diamonds, and elbow grease. Sounds crazy but both scales were cut out by hand which probably took about the same amount of time as to make a whole samurai sword!
Red Jasper cut down to scale.
After cutting the scale shapes out, they needed to be carved and shaped close to polish (so as not to mar the blade and tang once assembled) and pin holes needed to be drilled in exact alignment. This was all done with diamond burs in the Foredom flex-shaft under the sunshine and fresh air of the outdoor carving studio.
Petrified Wood Scale, Knife Blank, Red Jasper Scale
Epoxy Under Pressure
Time to bind this rock and metal sandwich with epoxy, carefully work the pins through, and set it under pressure to cure. Covering the blade at this point is recommended to make sure that the aforementioned symbolic blood isn’t spilled for real through user accident. Once the cure process is finished, back out to the carving station to remove the extra pin material.
Jewelers’ saw with a metal blade this time to trim the pins.
Nova Points
People ask me all of the time what the carving tools look like to make the stones into gems (and knife in this instance). Diamond burs (shown below) grind the stone into your desired shape. My favorites to use for ‘pre-polish’ are these Nova Points. Each one has a different abrasive strength that takes the blocky shapes away and smooths the edges. It seems odd that those modest looking cones could tame a stone.
Blocky handle getting smoothed out by Nova Points
HiTech mini diamond discs of various sizes and diamond burs.
The flat portions of the knife, or faces of the knive scales, are run through the same wheels as my lapidary machine but in small scale on my rotary tools. Diamond discs from both HiTech Diamond and DiaShine were used to work the surfaces. Each color represents a different mesh or grit and take the stone from dull slab to high polish.
From untold hours of sawing, grinding, and polishing this Roots and Blood Knife emerges. This is the very first knife project for me and I’m delighted by the end result. Along the way, I learned tons of lessons that will help the next project go much faster. Because of countless hitches and delays, this was a work in process for half of the year, but in 2020, what else did I have to do but shelter with blade?
Through the many days that I worked on this knife, it was my pleasure to let my thoughts drift fondly to the journeys and bonds that that this knife represents. It was made a gift to my dad for Christmas 2020 and we’re looking forward to opportunities to use it in the coming years.
