German hunting trousse, part VII

Remember seventeen months ago when I said that this project is going in a somewhat different direction?  Now that the interminable preparations for Plataea 2022 are behind me, I can show you what I meant by that.

I'd never been satisfied with the original start of the project, using ash that had been textured and stained to resemble antler and then glazed with a modern wood finish.  The homemade nickel silver washers always turned out uneven and didn't look like historical examples.  They were also difficult to drill and the pins were difficult to peen, which didn't bode well for the idea of making nickel silver fittings for the cleaver.

Wanting to use more historical materials but still not wanting to rely on genuine antler, I've decided to just make the scales out of a good honest wood that isn't pretending to be something it's not but still has a rustic look in the same vein as antler.  I selected white oak, which is the preferred oak for cutlery, being much less porous than the red oak commonly sold in the States and (so I read) more similar to European oak.  For this purpose I ordered 1/4-inch scales for the cleaver and 1/8-inch scales for the accessory pieces.  I'm finishing them with linseed oil and historical rosin varnish.  These give the wood a richer, more yellowish color than it originally had.

Henceforth, all fittings except for the washers are going to be steel instead of nickel, with pins cut from 1/8-inch common nails.  The accessory pieces have forged bolsters while the cleaver will have a guard and nagel cut from 1/4-inch mild steel.

For the washers I gave Radovan Geist's method of using upholstery tack heads another try.  This time I drove the tacks into a block of wood, used my Dremel round cutter to grind a pit in the exact middle of the tack to prevent the drill from slipping off-center, and proceeded with the drill press.  I then removed the tacks, pried out the loosened shanks, and gripped the tack head's edges with a pair of pliers as I finished drilling out the hole.  The tack heads often seized on the drill bit, causing them to spin around in the pliers and be badly scratched on the sides, and the drill bit often wandered off-center despite my best efforts, but thankfully upholstery tacks are cheap and I could give it plenty of tries until I got enough washers for the project.  Even the edges of the washers that didn't get unuseably scratched often required a little cleanup with a finetoothed needle file.  Finally, I've used the large attachment of a line snap setter to roll up the sharp edges of metal that stick downward inside the washers.  It's a lot of work, but the result is a much, much more professional washer than I could have fabricated from metal stock.

After the varnish had cured on the first set of scales, I attached them with pitch glue, drilled, used an X-Acto to trim the scale edges flush with the fork's tang, sanded the scales round again, and just this afternoon I set the pins.  There is a stainless steel washer under each domed washer to try to reinforce it from collapsing during the peening process.  I don't know if this helped but they don't seem to have been flattened.

I sanded out some of the dings that resulted from peening, and have reapplied linseed oil and will be re-varnishing the scales over the next week or two.  The knife should go pretty much the same way.

German hunting trousse, part VI

It took a long time for me to decide what to do about the fork.  I eventually came up with a solution, sort of, because the project is now going in a somewhat different direction.  We're starting with a period two-tined fork from Crazy Crow (the buffalo horn scale version only because it's the cheapest).

The first step is to remove the scales. I first wrapped the tines in a scrap of soft leather, clamped them firmly in a vise, and ground off the ends of the pins with the angle grinder flap disc in case they were peened.  They may not have been, although making the pins shorter can't hurt with the next step.  Grinding animal horn does produce a foul odor, so it would've been worth either doing outdoors or by less aggressive means (or avoiding altogether) if possible.  Luckily, I have a basement to work in.

I next gradually jimmied the scales off the tang.  This is made much easier by the fact that they aren't secured with any kind of glue.  In fact, the stuff between the scales and tang is a greasy, grimy substance similar to oil-based clay.  That might even be what it is.  I don't know why it's there, but maybe it helps prevent rust.

There was already a tiny but noticeable gap between the tang and one scale.  I inserted an X-Acto blade tip-first, first at one end, then the middle, then closer to the bolster, and continued until the gap had opened up all along one scale.  I switched to the other scale, which was loosening up, then expanded the gap with a thicker knife blade until the scales could be yanked off.

I drew the new shape of the tang on with a paint pen, then it was time for more angle grinding, and finished up by filing the edges smooth and polishing them with grades of sandpaper.

The last step in modifying the metal part itself was to straighten the tines in a vise so that they would more easily slide into the sheath.  This was not difficult - the fork appears to be made of mild or un-hardened steel - but it did result in the tines having a slightly wavy profile.