A Special Build

[RetiredSeabee]

That is a beauty, and very thoughtful of your daughter. Maybe the petrified poop will show up in a future project.
One question; Is the Bone natural in that black, or was it dyed?

[BrokenolMarine]

I think the bone is naturall a bone color, but Jantz offers it dyed in a rainbow of colors. Very reasonably priced as well. I mostly use it as accent, but have made a couple small knives with rhino and giraffe scales.

[rickhem]

Imagine the sailors way back when having a kind of a flash of vision, that one day a piece of wood from their boat would find it's way to the handle of a custom knife. I'm sure they'd laugh that off. Maybe a few sailors made things themselves from pieces of the ship, like the trench art from WW1.

From a perspective on the part of the USS Constitution though, it would be interesting if they had a picture database showing what the various pieces of wood from the ship eventually were crafted into. It would be interesting to see how creative minds were able to put those pieces of history to use.

And again, fantastic work BOM, your stuff is always amazing!

[BrokenolMarine]

I think I remember seeing possibles boxes and knives made from scrapes of ship boards/beams in a museum, mostly hand carved and hand fitted by the sailors to pass the downtime. They used what little they could find, and when repairs were made they would make all kinds of things from the leftovers.

[BigAl52]

Nice job BOM. Really like the turquoise on the handle

[BrokenolMarine]

I was almost out. Tina ordered more from the Kingman mine in AZ. It's due in next week. The slab scraps are no longer available, she ordered chunks. I'll have to cut slabs off those for accent pieces. It "may" work to an avantage. We'll see.

[BrokenolMarine]

The new Turquoise came in. Five Pounds of rough rock, $295 with shipping. She caught it on sale and saved a bit off that. So we went ahead and got it now.

I'll be cutting it as needed on the wet tile saw. This WAS a very wet job as the saw would soak me from my chest to my knees. I wore a full face welding shield to protect my eyes. I watched a video on YouTube called "Cutting Turquoise With a Tile Saw." I wish I had watched it a long time ago. The guy had turned the saw round and had the blade turning down away from him. Two advantages....

1. The first is the water is thrown AWAY from you, and any small chips and debris are as well. Well duh....

2. He says he has MUCH better control of the turquoise pulling it through the cut than pushing. HE was cutting quarter sized pieces he had taken from necklaces, down the middle where the lacing had gone to polish to make rings. MUCH smaller pieces and thinner than I would be cutting.

I'll certainly try this when I make my cuts. I will first sand a flat on the bottom of the piece for safety to help with control before I start my cuts. The small loss will be worth the risk.

It will be a bit before I need to cut, but the Turquoise is getting harder to find.

[BrokenolMarine]

Well, I finally got some time to get into the shop and work on the knife again. I inserted the pins, worked on the finish, polished the pins and applied several coats of wax. She's done for now. I will work on building the special display case after I finish a major project for the garage, but the knife turned out pretty well. I, of course, see the areas I wish I'd done better in, but Tina loves it, as does my daughter.

24 done.jpg

I will likely add a couple more coats of beeswax and buff, buff, buff.

[CT_Shooter]

...Tina loves it, as does my daughter.

And me. Great job, Marine.

[daytime dave]

That is a very impressive build marine. Your skills are also impressive.