A Bowie and a Puukko

Here are a couple of recently completed knives.  First is this beast of a bowie.  The blade is 10 inches long and 1/4-inch thick, convex ground.  The handle is walnut and leather.  This thing is a great chopper, and slices pretty well too.  I was asking $220 for it, which I think is pretty reasonable, but for my "Summer sales event" I am offering it for $200 with a free belt included.

 

This was my first blade with a swedge, which came out pretty well as you can see above.  I also have started etching my initials into my blades using a battery charger and salt water, which works pretty well.

The next piece is a Finnish Puukko-style knife, which I made for the annual "Knife in the Hat" event at Bladesmith's Forum.  The drawing is supposed to be done tomorrow.  I can't wait to find out who will be getting this knife, and who's knife I will be receiving.  There are some pretty nice blades going into the figurative "hat."

 I regret that my etched initials came out so sloppy looking on this piece.  I had practiced on a couple of other blades first, but on this one the electrical tape that my initials were cut into as a stencil came loose just as I was almost done with the etching.  Also, I accidentally made the sheath left-handed, which is known to happen at least once to anyone who makes this style of sheath.  Aside from being backwards, the sheath came out pretty well.  It has a wooden liner, which gives it the distinctive shape that is very traditional for a Finnish puukko.  I'll blame the goofs on the pressure of making a knife for a bunch of awesome knife makers.