Since I rarely do non-commissioned work, I rarely have the opportunity to have something sitting around the shop staring at me, pestering me with it's little foibles. I recently acquired a piece of 5 to 6000 yr old bog oak (came with a carbon date report!) and it was just asking to be on the war knife. And I also wasn't happy with the scars on the bolster from the multiple pourings that it took to get the pewter in place. And I also wasn't happy with the dead look of the pewter that I used. So... I removed the original handle.. did some further grinding on the blade (to remove the partial touch marks), and made a new grip. This one has a silver based pewter which is much prettier to me and has markings which I snagged from a hilt in the 'Swords of the Viking Age' book. And the bog oak sports a wire brushed finish. I, personally, vastly prefer the look of this iteration.

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It is frustrating to have to do such a drastic re-work on something.. but the release I feel with finally feeling happy with the end product makes it worth it.

I just listed this for sale (along with a camp knife and axe) on my Facebook 'Big Rock Forge' page if there is interest: https://www.facebook.com/BigRockForge?ref=hl

Absolutely fantastic work! The colors of the steel and the wood compliment each other so well. And the blade profile is perfect as well. Well done!

Absolutely stunning! I especially like the almost graphic colours in combination with the rough textures. Beautiful work.

That bog oak really blends well with the pewter and damascus. What a great piece!

Wow.... huge improvement... that looks fantastic.

Thanks for all the comments folks... I appreciate it. I have some more pictures of the pommel piece that I need to upload...

Another thing that really improved on this version was the fitment of the pewter bolster to the blade. This time I fashioned a mild steel mock-up of the blade, coated it in petroleum jelly and poured the pewter. I flowed wonderfully around the mock-up which then just pulled out. I made the mock-up a hair smaller than the original so I could do some fine filing for the original.

Does anybody know of any historical pieces that had these kind of fittings? Pewter, etc? My understanding is that most knives of this genre probably only had wrapped ferrules, a pierced plate.. or nothing at all.