Making an integral criollo - O1 and Antelope - Lots of pics

[Ruben Calo]

Grinding the blade.




Heat treating it. (Not this exact blade, as I didn't have anyone to take a picture and I needed both hands)




After HT with some cleaning of the working area.




Making a groove for securing the handle.






Finishing it.




Sanding the blade.






Almost finished blade.

[Ruben Calo]

Views of the groove.






Antelope horn.




Boiling it on water and vonager to soften it and be able to press it and get rid of some of the curves of it.




Pressing it.




Sanding it.




Roughly sanded, yet not polished.




A little bit more sanding.




Not yet polished.




You can check out how it was flattened for a better grip without loosing the patterns of the horn.

[Ruben Calo]

This was the original horn shape.
The first piece isn't sanded, the second one (the handle) it is sanded, and the third one, the tip, was sanded and polished to look all 3 stages. That is how the finished handle will look like.




Marking a sterling silver sheet for the buttcap piece.




Cutting it.




Cutted piece.




Testing it.




Marking on the same sheet to cut the end part for the buttcap piece.




Cutting it (I broke the saw as you can see)




Welding both pieces together.




Putting the handle together.




Thanks for looking!

Ruben

[mknife]

Hi Ruben,
thanks for your photo.

Riccardo

[Andrew Garrett]

Very interesting. I can't wait to see it completed.

[CWKnifeman]

Very nice, thanks for sharing.

[waredbear]

Thanks for taking the time to snap a few photos as you work. We newbies really appreciate the photo tutorials on how to make knives. I don't know about the rest of the makers here but I like looking in the background of each picture to see the shop and tools laying around. Helps me to visualize how I want to set-up my shop. My only suggestion would be to not leave out any process. The handle looks like it was coated in the last picture but you didn't show us how you did that. It's the small things that mean so very much.

thanks again for sharing the process with us.

In His Service,
Reid Allen

[Ruben Calo]

Reid,

I apreciate your observation, indeed sometimes I skip some steps without realizing it, as most of the time I work alone and nor only is hard to get pictures while posing for the picture, but sometimes I just forget about it, as I?m busy working on the knife. Some works like this one are complicated and require a lot of concentration on my part.

I?ll post pictures of the finished knife and making of the sheath (in leather and sterling silver) soon!

Thank you

[Andreotti]

Ruben

Congratulations. A new one beautiful work.
Can you give more details about your method to soften the horn?
Works to a bufalo horn to?

Abra?os.

Alessandro Andreotti

[Dan Graves]

One step I would like to see is how you get the metal ferrule round and centered so well on the blade. Thanks for sharing.

[Ruben Calo]

Originally Posted by Andreotti

Can you give more details about your method to soften the horn?
Works to a bufalo horn to?i

I boil it on water and vinegar and it works on other horns indeed

Ruben