Mini-sgian dubh kilt pin in progress

[jmercier]

I saw some of those sgian dubh kilt pins on another thread, with the ugly leather sheathes and the gimpy looking blades... but i thought the concept was nice. So Iv'e gone and made myself one. It's not finished yet, but the mini-sgian dubh is done now, so I'm starting this thread.

I wanted to make a useable / good knife, not just something for decoration. I chose to forge this from some O1. The only O1 I had was a 3/4" round piece of drillrod. I took forever just to forge the rod down to a reasonable width at the end



I forgot to take a picture of the blade after I forged it. After forging it and grinding it, I hardened it in a vat of canola oil I've got, and then chose a wood for the handle and sheath. I split the piece of wood in half, and then drilled out the area for the tang to go. Then i filed out the rest of the slot for the tang.



it took a long time to get the wood to meet back together flush without any gaps, with the grain matching again. here was ensuring the final fit before mixing some epoxy.



I then filled both sides and the surfaces of the matching wood with long set epoxy, clamped it, and let it dry over night.



in the morning I took the blade with block and the dried epoxy out to my grinding station and shaped the handle.



here's a link to a larger picture of it. http://www.tharkis.com/images/minisgianlarge.jpg

Now I've got to drill and file out the center of 2 pieces of wood for the sheath, and shape it to match the top. I want it to not be distinguishable as other than a hardwood pin when worn. The pin for attaching it will go on the back of the sheath, and I want the sheath to be tight so the top will stay put. I may cut out a bit extra from the inside of the sheath and line it with a little bit of leather so that it will grip the blade better.

I'll update this thread later as I finish the sheath!

Overall length of blade + handle is 4 inches, the sheath should make the kilt pin total length 4.5 inches, a little longer than i wanted, but that'w how it turned out =)