Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day, Everyone!  Not the picture you were anticipating on Valentine's Day? I don't particularly like this holiday.  I never have.  It isn't because of any bad experiences, either.  I just don't like it.  Oh well.  But that is not why I have a knife on this blog post.  This is Casey's Valentine's Day Present from me.  Do you think it sends the wrong message to give the love of your life a knife on Valentine's Day?  Good thing Casey knows that I come from a different family....

I may hate Valentine's Day, but I do, however, love Casey very, very much and wanted to do something special for him.  So I thought and thought and thought, and since he usually doesn't tell me what he wants, I have to use my imagination.  One of the few good things about an overly active imagination is that you do, on occasion, get some great ideas.  Casey didn't appear to have a knife that was very special to him, or if he did, I didn't know about it.  So I decided to make the knife and have my dad help me. 

I should note that my dad is a true artist.  He is extremely talented at woodworking, and crafting all sorts of various (and I do mean various) multi-media things.  He makes beautiful arrowheads out of many types of flint, bows, arrows, he's made a hammer dulcimer for my mom, many banjos, moccasins out of buckskin, I could go on and on.  No matter what he makes, it always turns out to be absolutely beautiful, as you can see with this knife.  The only credit I can take is the fact that I polished it - with his instruction, and added a little bear grease.  Yes, my parents do have bear grease on hand.  That my dad rendered himself.  I can only imagine what all of you are probably thinking...

What ended up happening with this project was my dad helped me pick everything out (except for the antler).  He is the one who actually made the knife while I supervised, and I later polished the handle, which is probably a good thing because there were lots of tools involved that, if they were in inexperienced hands (i.e. mine), there could have been a little or a lot of bloodshed.  Not that I am opposed to looking for a missing finger (yes, I have done so...for my dad, in fact), we were just in a time crunch seeing as how Valentine's Day is right around the corner and I wasn't aware that the antlers had already been delivered to my parents' house.  So, I did productive things like holding the saw. I also found the saw.  And held the antler.  And the blade.  And found the rasp.  Discovered that there is indeed a difference between a rasp and a file. Looked for my dad's phone in a bunch of leaves.  I decided to call my dad's phone, wondering if I could find it even if it was ringing because the ring tone on it has different bird calls, making this endeavor rather interesting since there were a lot of birds singing outside.  My mom found my dad's phone.  It was in the house.  Go figure.

I also found out that there is a difference in a Mule Deer Antler and a White Tail Deer Antler, (Mule Deer has more forks, a White Tail has a lot of points that come off of the main part of the antler). 

(Left is the White Tail (chewed by a squirrel and weathered) and Right is a Mule Deer, not chewed by a squirrel or weathered)  The funny thing is we had an abundance of deer antlers while I was growing up.  Now that I am getting around to making something out of them...my dad was out.  Go figure.  I actually had to pay for a deer antler.  I never thought I would have to.  But, such is life.

The knife blade (I know what you are thinking: well duh)

Next, a very important step that my dad taught me at a very early age: Eyeballing

"That'll work! And if it doesn't, we'll figure it out!"

(We have had to figure out a lot of things throughout the years...but this one worked out)

After that, we had to saw off a piece of the antler so we could make a smooth handle.

Then Sam demanded we take a break and have some playtime.

Then we (my dad) drilled a hold for the shaft of the blade to fit into.

He was out of canon bones from a buffalo, so we had to use wood as the piece that would set between the blade and the handle.  This is my dad splitting the wood.  One very important factor when doing this is to go with the grain of the wood.  "Just like when you are making a banjo,"    :)

Then we (he) carefully poured the glue (Epoxy) into the antler...

(Notice he covered the blade with paper and duct tape - Good Idea - no bloodshed)

Then we waited for it to set.  The next day we smoothed out the edges and I sanded and polished the handle until it was smooth.  After that I rubbed a little bit of bear grease on it and it was finished!

I am terrible at waiting and I couldn't wait to give it to Casey.  So I gave it to him right away.  On Sunday.  I think he liked it...Happy Valentine's Day, Everyone!