Indo-Persian letter opener

For his birthday this year, my dad asked for a letter opener.  I wonder if he didn't ask for one just because he knew it was a project I'd enjoy, but anyway, I took the first idea that came to mind and ran with it.

This is based loosely on a number of roughly 17th- to 19th-century khanjars, most often seen with curved blades but sometimes with straight ones.  It uses a Windlass full-tang dagger blade with a modified butt end.  This blade is in fact the same one as from the letter opener I made five years ago; I ordered a new one, but the new one was slightly longer and with less distal taper than the old one, and didn't fit the scabbard core I'd created.  (It, along with the large "companion" blade I ordered earlier this year, also have squared edges of around a millimeter thick, and I wonder if this is a sign of a decrease in quality control.)

Because the handle should be low-maintenance, I finished the holly grips with Tru-Oil, which, unlike linseed oil, forms a hard, glossy top coat.  The hardware is all brass.  I cut the bolsters from 3/16-inch (4.76mm) bar stock, shaped them to the correct profile with an angle grinder, polished the edges, then epoxied them in place for pinhole drilling and cross-section shaping.  I drilled flared openings to the pinholes with a Dremel high-speed cutting cone so that the pins would hopefully mushroom to fit these openings rather than forming protruding domes.  Once the pins were peened, I smoothed off the faces of the bolsters with the angle grinder, a rasp and polishing paper to produce a flush surface.

The scabbard was fairly quick to make, since I already had a wooden core on-hand fitted to this exact blade and some thin green leather, stitched with black simulated sinew.  (Velvet would be more appropriate, but regardless, most antique Indian knives I've seen have either a green or red facing material.)  I at first tried to do a cross-X stitch, but that placed so much strain on the leather that it tore and I had to replace the entire facing.

The throat and chape are sheet brass, with classic Mughal leaf decoration drawn freehand in permanent marker for a resist and ferric chloride-etched.  A soldered tab holds a suspension ring.  A few originals I've seen have a cord tied to the suspension ring, which I understand would be used for attaching the scabbard to a belt, but in this case it seems less effective because the blade is very light, causing the whole assembling to hang handle-down when tied to a belt.  This is perhaps less important in this application than it might be elsewhere, since it's unlikely that Dad will actually wear this letter opener, but it would be nice nonetheless to figure out a way to make it work anyway.  A second suspension ring on the other side of the throat might help; however, I suspect that any system which doesn't involve lashing the scabbard tightly to the belt will be ineffective on account of the balance.  The chape has a soldered brass bead for a finial, capped off at the other end with an escutcheon pin; the chape and throat are also soldered up the back.

Presentation box for my letter opener

Yesterday I finished up my fine woodworking fundamentals course.  There were exactly two projects in this class (aside from doing a practice set of dovetail joints), a picture frame and a box.  I'm not publishing the picture frame because it's very plain and uninteresting.

I made the box to fit the letter opener I finished in September.  The finger joints reminded me of masonry, so it's obviously inspired by West Asian architecture, particularly the palaces of Persepolis.

It consists of American or black walnut and soft maple.  Unfortunately, the walnut's color varied a lot through the plank.  For finishes I had a choice of boiled linseed oil, tung oil-based varnish or water-based polyurethane, but being short on time, I was forced to go with the polyurethane, so its finish is still a bit rough (the professor noted that polyurethane, in her words, "bubbles" a lot when brushed on; it requires repeated sanding to look good).

It has two brass-plated steel hinges.  Sadly, copper to match the letter opener's furniture seems to be unavailable.  I might try to fabricate my own in the future.  The letter opener and scabbard are supported by two inserts carved from rigid pink insulating foam and covered with epoxied polyester suede cloth.  A considerable amount of epoxy seeped through the cloth; clearly I should've found something with a non-porous back.

Because the box is so small and cut to fairly tight tolerances, it's feasible to have the upper insert rest on a pair of narrow shelves over the lower one so the box can be more compact.

This was a good class for learning the use of the major standing equipment and how to get the greatest precision in fit.  Most of the work is (if you do it correctly) done on the planer, table saw and routing table, machines with which I was totally unfamiliar before.  It also gave me a chance to get started on a handful of personal projects which I can finish up over the summer.

I'm calling it a letter opener

This blade from Atlanta Cutlery resembles a miniature Luristan bronze, or others used in West Asia in the late Bronze and early Iron ages, so I went for a vaguely ancient Near Eastern look in furnishing it.  It could also pass for a Conan-esque fantasy weapon if it weren't so tiny.

In reality, I have no idea what they were going for with this design.  It most closely resembles a Sürmene knife, but the slop of the shoulders, undifferentiated pommel area and rounded butt end go against that.  In any case, I preferred something older.

The scales are maple; I sorted through the 1/4-inch planks at Lowe's to find the curliest piece available, although the rounded shape rendered the grain less visible.  With a light stain and linseed oil finish, it bears some resemblance to curly walnut.  I filed a small inset section into the scales and tang to hold the twisted copper wire, which begins and ends inserted into small channels in the undersides of the scales.

The pins are all 1/8-inch copper wire.  In most photos of the bare blade I've seen, the two holes at the shoulders look much smaller than the ones running down the middle of the tang - I bought some 1/16-inch wire in anticipation of that - but in fact they're the same size.

I could find little or no information about ancient scabbard construction, so I used a wood core covered with leftover scraps of light brown suede and painted on a generic winged beast motif.  I don't much like this bulging cross stitch and probably won't use it again; a flat cross stitch is much nicer-looking even if it does put more strain on the leather (at least the way I do it).

When worn, the thongs are passed over and behind the belt, down and out, then tied again in front of the scabbard below the first knot.  Alternately, the thong may be done away with and the scabbard simply tucked behind the belt, but I find this method uncomfortable, and didn't include a throat to prevent it sliding out of the belt (a la the "Elamite dagger").

The conceit in including a second sheath is that the blade was refurnished in modern times.  It's your basic veg-tan finished with brown shoe polish and acrylic varnish.  A snap is stitched to the belt tab and covered on the outside with a homemade brass spot before the tab is riveted to the sheath's back face.  Because the faces are stitched outside the welt for a tight side closure, the sheath looks much wider than one might assume necessary.  A back-seamed sheath would produce a narrower profile, but side-seamed ones appear to be more popular in America.