just made my 1st knives today

[crashdive123]

I've never had a problem with handles cracking during the peening process. (Not saying that it can't happen)
Maybe the wood I use is stronger or tighter grained?
I use red oak, dogwood, hickory and occasionally pecan.
Any ideas crash?

It can be done. I just find that I get very good results for the method I described along with it being very easy to do. Everybody's mileage may vary.

[randallss7]

Congrats. For your pins on your handle material I would not peen them (may crack the handle material). I use the same adhesive (Devcon 2 part epoxy lately) for the handle slabs and the pins.

I do it the very same way and get the same results. The handles stay on so good that if I screw up or do not like the final look I just give the knife away as trying to remove the handle is nearly impossible. I spin my pins in my drill press while holding 220g paper to them to rough up and deglaze the outsides gives the epoxy something to hold onto, even though I doubt its necessary.

[crashdive123]

Yep, I rough up my pins as well.

[Farley]

I'm rally wondering who is that guy waving his finger..is he someone famous?

Kinda reminds me of Barney Miller, the cop show from a zillion years ago.

[kyratshooter]

The old guy waving his finger is Babu Bhatt, a character from the old Seinfeld series.

I can not show my first hand made knife, since it was a product of my 13 year old experiments in grana's shop. It was made from a broken file, I do remember that.

I put together a few custom handles on production blades latter on and when I started forging in the blacksmith shop I got into producing knives again.

Thing was, I was making reenactment blades copied from frontier artifacts and they did not have the "shine" the average flatlander wants on a knife blade.

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I think the two on the ends are forged from hay rake tines and the center blade is a file.

The bolsters are poured pewter.

[Rick]

Nice job, Kyrat.

[kyratshooter]

Probably the two best blades I ever forged will never be seen.

I made each of my boys a combat knife for their first deployments to Iraq.

Each was forge from a 10" file, full tang with burl tiger-stripe maple grips.

I made a sheath that held a sharpening stone for each one.

They are packed away in the boys trophy boxes with the rest of the "war stuff" and will probably not see the light of day until the grandkids are big enough to sneak into the attic and get into it an start asking questions about the war Dad never talks about.

[MrFixIt]

Here is a pic of some of haymaker's knife work.
The traditional Native American designs and materials are used.
Looking good haymaker!

HM knives.jpg