rawhide sheath for bone handled knife

[Mogorilla]

Made ham and beans from Holiday ham.  Hated to see the bone go to waste.  Had a garage sale blade, so bone and blade met.  Made a sheath from a rawhide chew toy. (veg tanned liner, and brain tan trim)

[dusty texian]

That is Very Cool, Whoda Thunk it !!!!!!!!!!Dusty

[ChurchandSon]

I love butchers....Nice job....

[Ten Wolves Fiveshooter]

Well done Mogorilla, you were for sure thinking outside the box on this one....

         tEN wOLVES 

[Marshal Will Wingam]

Very nice, Mo. Like TW said, very innovative. Thanks for the pics.

[bedbugbilly]

Great job!  That's something you can sure be proud of!

I have a question on the bone . . .

Is this a "cooked" bone or a "raw" bone?  The reason I ask, is that years ago when my wife was teaching school, I made "archeology pits" in the school yard.  (4th graders).  We had a complete deer skeleton I'd gathered on the farm - a doe that had been shot during season and never picked up by some yahoo) and we also had a hog skeleton.  We'd bury 'em in the sand, the kids would have to dig and then assemble (lay out on a table) the bones and identify them from a large painted chart I had made.  The hog skeleton had come from a "pig roast".  After a few years,, it started to crumble pretty bad and we figured it was due to the grease cooked into the bones during the hog roasting.  The deer skeleton remained in good shape throughout a number of years - the carcass had rotted down and we had very little cleaning of the bones to do.

So . . . if a person utilizes a bone like this . . . should it be "raw" or could a "cooked" bone be used and if so, will it hold up?  I've used sections of deer bone over the years to cut out bone inlays for muzzleloader stocks I've made and it has held up well with no drying out to the best of my knowledge (I sold the rifles).  What's the best way to "treat" a bone (if necessary?) to keep it from drying out and possibly cracking?  Did the Native Americans somehow treat the bone or did they just use them raw and if they cracked or broke, make another one since these knives were "utility" pieces?

Again - great job and thanks for sharing with us!  Gives a feller all sorts of ideas . . . . 

[GunClick Rick]

That knife and sheath are way cool,simple and awsome,go together well!


I don't know for sure but i made a badger skull pipe once and a game warden warned me about bacterial disease...

Used the skull,claws,hair,it was a real dry road kill and bleached real well by the sun.Now the guy lightin it is a seargent (my cousin) at the PD

[GunClick Rick]

Made ham and beans from Holiday ham.  Hated to see the bone go to waste.  Had a garage sale blade, so bone and blade met.  Made a sheath from a rawhide chew toy. (veg tanned liner, and brain tan trim)

Looks like an Old Hickory or Frontier Knife,i have a couple of those,i pick them up at second hand stores and such..Darn nice job Mr. Mo

[dusty texian]

What ear you smokin in that thar pipe GCR.

[Mogorilla]

Hey Bedbug,
This one is cooked, and boiled.  I have heard that the cooking process weakens them, your deer ones would be best (I believe if you are worried about bacteria, freezing it for a year might do the trick.).   This bone was fairly thin as well.  Disturbingly so.  30 years ago when I was a teen, we raised hogs, their ham bones were thick, strong bones.  so much so, you heard the 2011 space odessy music as you held it.  This one not that way, I suspect one of those big confinement lots, little squealer probably never walked much at all.  Since it was weaker, this has an oak dowel down the middle, I drilled holes in the dowel and put little dowels through that.  Then filled the whole thing with a 24 hour epoxy.   It was good and solid, not Period Correct, but solid.  I drilled out for the tang, then epoxied that in as well.   After it set, I drilled 2 holes (behind the rawhide) and placed 2 brass pins. 

I have a cow bone I dug up, figure it had been there a good 30 years as the in-laws have had it that long and no one remembers a cow croaking.   It is hard and solid.  I plan on it being a powder flask. 

Sounds like a fun class!

[GunClick Rick]

WY,kinick anick of course,me good injun Kimosabe Actually it was pipe tabacco from my uncle on the right.

[dusty texian]

Cool......dusty