[Sean Flynt]

I set out to use a bare Crazy Crow rifleman's knife blade for a Bauernwehr project. I got most of the way there, but I've immersed myself so deeply in study of American knives in recent years that lots of little problems with the project kept nudging me in that direction. So, I gave in and made another guardless early American knife.

This one has the look of Antebellum America, but the decoration of the sheath is inspired by a scabbard from Mary Rose. I like it, but I still want a Bauernwehr.

[Glen A Cleeton]

Very nice! I love the scabbard tooling and cross hatching on the grip. What wood is the grip?

Cheers
GC

[Sean Flynt]

Thanks! These scales are dyed oak. I can’t find real ash wheelbarrow replacement handles anymore. Those were my source for polearm hafts and knife scales of this size. It’s easy to find oak slats for scales. Hickory would be great for these knives. I have a bag of small cherry sticks that are sold for grilling, but make wonderful small scales.

[Dan D'Silva]

Looks great! What did you use for the scales?

It occurred to me recently that the "frontier rifleman's knife" is really an extra-long Sheffield Bowie, and not from the 18th century like they say.

Edit: Whoops. Looks like I opened the reply and didn't get around to posting it until after Glen asked you the same thing.

[Sean Flynt]

[Ryan McLaurin]

Very nice! I really like that. Do you have any photos of what the blade looked like when you started?

[Glen A Cleeton]

I did a knife back in the early 80's with a bare blade and book ended a piece of 1920s oak flooring. A groove already there for me.

There are a lot of demo sites of old apts that are oak boards or like what you show is thin quartersawn flooring, which is much thinner. Someone may be recycling and unloading stripped flooring but you can buy new planks at Home Depot.

Cheers
GC

[Sean Flynt]

Sorry--I had some technical difficulties and couldn't respond. The stock blade of this type is hanging at far right in this photo. For my project, I've made the transition to the false edge a bit more subtle, and significantly altered the shape of the grip, which is perfectly rectangular in stock form. It's good that this gives the cutler some options, but this tang is so hard that it must be annealed to do any shaping.

The other blades are (L-R):
2 Alabama Damascus Steel blades (above a craft foam form used to model designs)
Generic bowie blade that needs reshaping and a mounting design
Green River
Old kitchen knife awaiting a project idea
Old Hickory butcher knife I started to reshape and then stepped away from
2 Atlanta Cutlery daggers
Atlanta Cutlery rifleman's knife awaiting a good idea

These are just my bare pierced blades. I have a drawer full of old kitchen knifes and un-pierced blades. Not enough time!

[Jean Thibodeau]

Sean, interesting early Bowie that you put together.

I think that the first Bowie was probably a large butcher knife or inspired by Spanish Facon styled knives that also seem to be related to other European Medieval knives.

The Cold Steel " FACON " Argentinian styled knife: https://www.warriorsandwonders.com/Cold_Steel_Knives/Cold_Steel_Facon_1090_Carbon_Steel_CS88CLR1

I gave mine the mustard and lemon juice patination treatment and got good results, looks better to me than a polished blade.
I go for a mottle finish with lots of activity, the lemon juice not only grays the steel it can also does some subtle etching on the surface if the lemon juice is used on toilet paper in contact with the steel saturated in the lemon juice and/or mustard.

Side note: I recently tried strong black coffee to darken a Cold Steel tomahawk blade after I took of the ugly black paint.
This gave a very dark grey to black finish by letting the tomahawks blade soak in a bowl of black coffee for 24 hours.