With the seasonal holidays giving us free time not normally available I thought it was a good oppertunity to do one or two jobs....

The first one I wanted to do was to make a sheath for my Woodlore Bushcrafter which had a loop attachment for a fire steel. HD put me onto a US site called "knives ship free" who have a nice collection of ferro rods from which to choose. I saw one from Sweden which had a wood handle which looked like a good match for the Maple grips on the Woodlore...I sent off for one and it has been sitting in it's packet awaiting me getting the chance to match it up with the knife.

The Woodlore comes with either a solo knife belt sheath or a firesteel sheath which is designed for neck carry and lacks a belt loop. Mine came with the solo version.



I could have over stitched a loop of leather onto this sheath but that looks a little untidy for me and I do like the versatility of having a solo sheath or one with a fire steel. The "solo" sheath fits in nicely on my Desert Tac Vest Bayonet pocket....a small point but that vest is not "molle" so you have to use it as it comes...and carrying this knife there has worked well for me so far. It makes for a nice food prep knife as it is a Satin finish which I like for this use and can do any number of other tasks equally well. Glare wise for military use the Scandi sheath houses most of the handle and there is little exposed for the spine to reflect light....and carried in the pocket under my left arm it is protected from direct sunlight.

Anyway...using the original sheath as a model and after taking measurements and cutting out a pattern on paper and using this as a template for the leather...here is the final finished version.



I rigged up an overhead "Heath Robinson" attachment for my dremmel drill onto my Arbor Press used in bullet seating for doing the stitch holes in the leather and this greatly improved my ability to get uniform holes for the stitching. I also used a magic marker on the spur wheel used to mark the leather for the holes rather than go off dimples which are hard to "press" into this hard hide leather and the little "ink dots" created made for a much better job.

The wood on the fire steel is I think "pine" or "fir" and was a much rougher finish than the maple grips on the knife....I put a bit of wet and dry paper to it and sanded it down a bit smoother and oiled it to try to get it to blend in as more of a match.



The next job I wanted to do was to put a convex edge on my Ratmandu. It came with quite a good V grind edge so I just stropped this up to get it razor sharp but the edge angle was rather obtuse and I have been meaning to re-profile it when I got the chance. After reading a couple of posts on the other Busse forum about a Russian named guy who had done some edge testing posts where SR101 steel had performed very well this finally got me round to wanting to do this job on my Ratmandu. So I got one of my old belts on my 1 inch sander and gave it a whirl....



I don't now go the long route on this task...I used to use a Lansky/Sharpmaker preperation step where I would put a primary V grind edge on the knife at 20 degrees either side ( 40 degrees inclusive ) and then using a magic marker on the edge convex it so that it would more or less come to a profile similar to a 40 degree inclusive edge with a thirty degree inclusive secondary bevel. This helps for touching up the edge on a Sharpmaker in the field and when your starting out it is a good reference point...but after doing a number of knives now I just go straight into the belt sharpening...it is far quicker this way and with the Ratmandu this has really suprised me as to how good an edge you can put on this steel.



After stropping the edge with a leather paddle and green compound this knife is very very impressive!! I think it could perhaps be the best "cutting" edge that I have...I re-profiled a Jackhammer to a similar edge and using my "junkmail" test bed of simply slicing the stuff up with the edge and looking for that "smooth no effort glide" that distinguishes a really well profiled and polished edge...the SR101 snags much less than the Infi...not that the Infi snags really...it is a fine line I am talking about here...but it does seem to me that the SR101 (or 52100 steel as it is more commonly called) seems to be just that bit smoother. Ofcourse it could simply be the variables in both edges...but each was done with the same belt...however the Jackhammer is ground as a Convex blade and the paper has more steel to make contact with...the RMD is Sabre Ground and seems to have less "contact" on the "flat" part of the blade....I don't know the answer here...but I can say that the edge it takes is every bit as good as Infi and there is perhaps the chance it may "cut" better.
Just a personal observation here....not wanting to be contraversial...both knives are like "lasers"....but it was nice to realise how little there is in it.

I love the Ratmandu balance and feel and have been considering that the only "improvement" I would like to see was perhaps an "infi" version. Now I am of the view that there will be "very" little in the steel difference in a knife of this size. So it saves me "looking" for a better Infi version...as is... it is about as good as you can get. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbup.gif" alt="" />

Finally my last job and perhaps the one I was most "lucky" with was my first foray into "re-grinding"....I have a knife done by Hattori in Cowry X which has gone through a number of modifications to try and get this one to where I really want it to be. It was a very expensive knife but came with an awfully uncomfortable chisel shape Stag handle...



I sanded this down and shaped it and it was looking like this....



The handle was much more comfortable but the finger guard was really more of an "obstacle" and a "hinderance" than a help. It would get in the way on food preperation "slicing" and also on some "carving"...in a nutshell it was just to "big" extending too low on the hand grip and stopping the knife for being used well on the finer tasks knives in this size range can excel at. So taking a "leap of faith" as to how it might turn out I decided to re-grind the finger guard using the wheel attachment on the sander at the side. Taking it in small steps and "dipping" the knife in water to make sure no "heat" got so hot as to affect the tang...this is how it eventually turned out....



I figure I was quite lucky in getting the curve on the guard to come out uniform...





It makes for the knife feeling much better in the hand...far easier to choke up on the blade for fine work...much easier at slicing...and still able to serve it's purpose as a finger stop and to act as a "tell" to let you know which way the knife edge is in the dark...all told the knife handles loads better for reducing that long guard and much more like my Woodlore and Ratmandu. I think these three are really my favourite knives as general "carry" knives...all capable of doing anything you want to...or can do...and all in that handy 4 to 5 inch blade range.

Very nice job on the sheath and the knives!!!
I like <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbup.gif" alt="" />

Cheers

Love that sheath!!

Thats great work Steel Fan! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbup.gif" alt="" />

You have some very fine knives, SF. If any maker has made a better 5" blade than the Ratmandu, I haven't seen it yet. Nice work. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbup.gif" alt="" />

WOW! You've been busy for sure SF!!! Excellent Job!!! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/ooo.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbup.gif" alt="" />

Love what you did to the stag handled knife.

Thanks for the kind comments guys...it is amazing what I have learnt from coming here! Great place where knowledge is shared! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbup.gif" alt="" />