Building a dirk

[MacHenderson]

Hey everyone. I started building a dirk a while back. I took an old 18 inch file, ground the teeth off it and shaped it with a grinder. Because I wanted the eighteen inch blade, I threw functionality out the window and welded a 4 inch strip of mild steel for the handle. A drilled two holes in my mild steel handle for divets (or rivets, I don't remember the right word.) to hold it all together. Next, I went and bought a little chunck of Cocobolo wood. (Pricey stuff. $15 for a 12 inch piece.) Using sandpaper and a Dremel sander, I made a semi-traditional shaped handle out of the wood. For the next step, I took the handle and cut it right in half, lengthwize with a band saw.
Now here's where I messed up. When I went to carve out the insert on the handle halves for the dirk's tang to slide into, when I chipped a piece off. After a healthy amount of swearing, I whipped out the elmer's wood glue and glued it back together. I was pretty happy with the glue job, seeing as how you could hardly tell it was broken. But I decided not to take anymore chances.
So instead of carving an insert out, I sandwiched the blade tange between the two handle halves and glued it completely together with Epoxy glue. A little redneck-ish, but I figured it would hold everything together even better than rivets. (or divets.) To make it all look pretty, I painted a black stripe over the epoxy layer and painted a celtic knotwork line along the stripe.
I got stuck at the furniture. I need to make a handguard and hilt. (I think hilt is the right word. The butt-end furniture piece.) I started making the handguard with a small, 1 1/2 inch wide strip of 22 or 24 guage sheet metal. I wrapped it around the handle and shaped it accordingly. I know I can weld it, but I have two problems with this piece. One, because I didn't get the handle shape perfectly, there are going to be little gaps between the wood and the furniture piece. And two, I'm at a loss as to how to make the cap for this piece, that the blade will stick through. I hope that makes sense. Can anyone make any suggestions, or does anyone have any better ideas?
And then there's the butt-end furniture. I figured it would probably be the same as the handguard piece, except that I bought a cool little green rock to put at the end. Any suggestions on how to mount this with the butt-end furniture piece?
I'll take a picture of the knife tomorrow, so you can see for yourself the progress I've made.

[Mr. MacDougall]

I think hilt is the right word. The butt-end furniture piece.

The hilt is everything you use to hold it with. The piece you're talking about is the pommel. I'm not a knife maker, but you could do worse than to consult the blademaker's fora at SwordForum International.

[LK-13]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilt

[MacHenderson]

Those guys are real pros, Mr. MacDougall. Would they mind an amature knife maker like me asking questions? If so, I'll definately ask around there too.
Thanks for the descriptions, LK-13.
Here's some pictures of my knife so far.

Here's the pommel of the handle.


Here's the guard.


A shot of where the blade enters the guard.


And of course a shot of the knife itself.

[Mr. MacDougall]

The SFI crew is just as warm and friendly as the X-Marks rabble. I'm sure that if you posted your question there, they'd be happy to answer, and give you what help they can.

[SnakeEyes]

I think the dirk looks pretty darned good for a first try, better than I could do at any rate.

[Skweres]

thats amazing, congrats on a fine looking dirk!

[MacHenderson]

Will do MacDougall. Thanks for the link.

[BEEDEE]

Looks good! I really like the painted strip over the glue line. When I first saw it I thought that you had sandwiched a contrast piece in the middle of two plain pieces.

Brian

[Rab Gordon]

That was a good idea with the epoxy.
See if you can find some pipe (maybe 1 1/2" copper water pipe ?) that would squish to the end shape and give you a mount for the stone.

Rab