Buffalo Horn Skinner

[BrokenolMarine]

Bored again, so a small project. A little skinner, a working knife. Buffalo horn scales. First step, make a pattern for the scales.
Just cut it out of a piece of manilla folder.

01 cut a pattern.jpg

I have a bunch of scale options in the drawer, but had chosen the buff horn for this knife. Whenever we go down to Jantz for supplies, Miss T always looks at the various scale material and this one caught her fancy. She liked the contrast and pattern. It was on sale and we tossed it in the drawer, I knew I'd get around to it eventually.

02 buffalo horn.jpg

As the scales would be a tad thin for my tastes as is, and ONE was a little banana'd (curved) I glued them to a liner, cutting the liner a tad oversized to start. This makes it much easier for the glueup as you are still on the liner if you slip. Simple to trim the liner down on the bandsaw and dress it up on the sander, plus any minor overage will be buffed away during shaping.

03 glued to liner.jpg

Using double sided tape and a Clamp I put the two scales together after I marked them and roughed them out on the bandsaw, and then drilled the holes for the pins. This way I knew they couldn't slide during glueup. A trick I learned ... where else? You tube.

04 drilling.jpg

The new benchtop drill press made the job a lot easier.

[BrokenolMarine]

Once the scales were drilled, I used some 120 grit sandpaper to prep the scales and the blank for glue up. then it was a matter of mixing the epoxy and slipping the scales over the prepped brass pins and clamping things together. The new can't twist clamps are awesome.

05 prepped for glue up.jpg

Once in the clamps, I left the "knife" alone for about fourteen hours, more than normal but the weather encouraged patience. It was raining like Noah was due any minute.

06 in the clamps.jpg

Out the next day, I could take the assembly out of the clamps, and began the shaping process. I used the benchtop desk sander, the oscillating sander and the 1x30 belt sander to get it to 1,000 grit. The ends were started before the glue up, but hand sanding would follow. Here we are at about the halfway point...

07 started shaping.jpg

This morning, I went out and began the hand sanding. With a fine mist of water, a dash of dawn rubbed on with the finger, and small squares of sandpaper, I worked up thru the grits to get the finished scales I wanted. She is shaped and done. I applied a coat of wax, and will apply another coat tomorrow. I'll also make a nice little sheath. I'm happy.

08 done.jpg

I'll put 'er aside after it's done. Maybe a Tanto next.
I'll post the sheath when it's done.

[Hatchdog]

Good looking and useful too. I always had a skinner about that size and found it worked great on deer sized critters.

Interesting looking clamps too.

[BrokenolMarine]

Good looking and useful too. I always had a skinner about that size and found it worked great on deer sized critters.

Interesting looking clamps too.

The clamps are called "Can't Twist" clamps. They come straight down on what you are clamping, and the pads have multiple clamping surfaces, some with a flat surface, some with a slotted surface for round shapes. The Bessy style clamps you apply then crank down tend to cause the work to move as the rotational movement of the screwdown is transferred to the pad and is very frustrating when you are trying to apply pressure to knife scales on the blade blank with a layer of epoxy between the two. These put direct pressure on the blank and scales. Awesome.

[JEBar]

nice blade .... well done

[RetiredSeabee]

I always enjoy following your projects. Thank again for inviting us along.

[daytime dave]

That will take the boredom away. That's a really nice project Marine. Nice step by step photographs too. Looks great!

[Steve51]

Excellent!!