question for knife makers

[john4645]

when I see antler handles that are from a shed antler, I never see the brow tine. I have all kinds of shed antlers and would like to make a knife but any that are large enough they have a brow tine. What kind of antlers are people using?

 

[Brasilikilt]

By brow tine.....do you mean the very small stub sticking out the base of an antler stick?

 

[BS]

Brow tines from Elk or Stag can be used.

 

[john4645]

well up here in wisconsin they can be up to 10 inches long.

 

[Bountyhunter]

I just take a straight section, or section that matches the shape of the tang, of main beam that is at least 1-1/4" in diameter. I silversolder the guard to the blade, then undercut the back edge with a 45 degree dovetail cutter. I then cut slabs from the mainbeam and then miter them to fit the undercut and epoxy and rivet them to the tang. That is for a full tang knife.

I use brow tines and other tines for handles on smaller patch knives and neck knives.

 

[paulvallandigham]

John: Obviously if the brow tine on your deer is only a stub, or maybe 1 or 2 inches long, the only thing it can be used for, other than making buttons, would be a short handle for an awl, or something similar. On the more mature deer, brow tines- the ones inside the main beams that usually point forward, or inward towards each other- can be very long, and then can make good handles for knives.
If you are going to use it on a full tang blade, then its probably easiest to simply cut the antler in half on a saw, rout them out for the tang, half each side, and then epoxy and pin them to the tang. The other way is to drll a hole down the middle of the antler the entire length, which is often hard to do, because drill bits follow murphys law- if anything can go wrong, it will!- and will be either too short, or will find some way to drift off center during the drilling operation, etc. Drilling two hole to meet in the middle is even more fun! Since the tang is not likely to be round, but rather rectangular in shape, you will want to fill the space around the metal tang with epoxy to add strength to the antler handle, which is brittle, and can chip out on you. Then you have to make and fit your end cap, and put them all together to finish putting on the knife handle. Are we having fun, yet?

 

[Bountyhunter]

Something else just occured to me. If you are talking about some of these knives which have the whole antler handle with the crown still intact, often times those are mule deer sheds.

Your north country deer will likely be whitetails. They will have prominent brow tines if they are allowed to grow past yearlings. On the high plains and the west where we have a good population of mulies, you will see that the mulie either has very small spurs for browtines or no tines at all. The knives that I have seen with full antler grips were ususally mulies. I have used some whitetail butts for handles by just cutting the brow tines off and polishing that area. Your whitetail antlers have a softer more pithy center than do the mulies. You can make a flexible drill which will follow the soft pithy center if you need to drill on a curve, by brazing a short section of bit on a piece of cable. Make sure that the twist of the cable is the right direction so it doesnt unlay when you drill. YOu will need to re-temper the bit after you braze it on the cable.

Bill

 

[john4645]

Thats what I am talking about our deer have brow tines. So if you are making a knife that is pc then I would assume you would use a Whitetail antler because there are no Mulies out east. (I am talking about making a knife for colonial time periods) So I can assume then that they would have cut the brow tine off and smoothed out that area?

 

[LRB]

Yes, that's what you have to do. Just finished one myself recently. Paid three bucks for it, nice crown. I wasn't sure it would work out as the guy sawed off the brow tine and went into to body of the antler a tad, but it worked out very well.

 

[ameling]

Simple answer is - just saw off that brow tine and file/grind/sand the area to shape and smooth it out. Some antler crowns can get pretty large, and have lots of "knobs" on them. Just file them down to size. It's your antler, so modify it to the size and shape you want.

Hershel House shows making a "backwoods" knife in his first Basic Blacksmithing video - from forging the blade all the way to pouring a pewter ferule. And the steps are shown pretty well in the video. He forged a full lenght narrow tang to go all the way through his antler handle, and is riveted over a washer on the crown end. He carefully drilled part way from both ends. Then he curved the tang to match the antler, and gently hammered it onto the tang. The tang sort of "reamed" out the drilled holes as it went through.

I hope this simple description helps. The video shows it better. And the rest of the video is a pretty good introduction to basic blacksmithing. The rest is just practice.

yhs
Mike Ameling

 

[john4645]

thanks guys