Move’Em On, Head’Em Up…RAWHIDE!!!

My latest venture into the knife making world will be to create rawhide knife sheaths.  It started when I saw my first Karen Shook sheath for a Daniel Winkler knife.  It was so freakin’ cool.  There was no way of knowing how the thing was put together or how much work went into it.  Hence the long time in between my first view and now. 

A very nice knife maker in Mississippi named John Cohea thought that type of sheath would fit his knives so he figured out his way of making them.  I recall a few years back when I called John and asked if he could show me how to make them.  He said yes but I never got over there.  He works on a boat so he is gone almost 8 months out of the year.  Well, following him online resulted in finding out that he made a video on “Basic Rawhide Sheath Construction”.  I was lucky enough to order the video before it even came out. 

He gives a thorough demonstration of the entire process which takes him quite a few hours to make.  After watching the videos a couple times so far I decided it’s time to tackle this project.

As with most of my endeavors I try to do as much of it as possible.  So I start out by pulling two deer hides out of the deep freeze.  There’s another on or two in there and a bunch of beaver hides waiting to be turned into something useful.  It takes at least three days for the hides to thaw in the shop fridge.  According to a guy online, he soaks the hide for 24 hours before fleshing the hide.  This gets most of the fat and flesh off so it doesn’t rot.  

Fleshing is a little easier after the soak but it is kinda messy. 

 After getting off what I can the hides go into a barrel with water and wood ashes or you can use hydrated lime.  There they will stay for 7 days, stirring daily to distribute the solution evenly.  The result of this action is to cause all of the hair to slip off. 
 

I thought that this would happen in the barrel and I’d pull out two cleaned hides at the end of the week.  Nope.  I pulled one out and put it on my fleshing beam which is a piece of old pvc pipe that had split in a water break.  All it took to get the hair off was scraping it with an old butcher knife.  I put a garbage bag at the bottom of the beam and all the hair went cleanly into the bag.

Next the hides had to be put into clean water for another 24 hours.  This helps get the lye out of the skin and neutralizes it.  I stirred this every time I passed the barrel.

The next day I built a frame to stretch the hide on.  I pulled one of the hides out and started punching holes along the edge and used jute twine to tie it to the frame.  The process began with two pieces at one end of the hide.  Then I tied up the other end and worked my way around the whole hide.  Everything was stretched as far as it would go.  This helps to thin it out.  You can see in the picture a new tool I made to scrape the hide once it was stretched.  The scraping gets any bits of flesh that I didn’t get off before.  This process took quite a while on the first one.  This hide turned out really nice and it was thin all over.

Hide number two was quite a bit bigger and so darn thick in some places.  It had been in the freezer for at least two years and had some bad spots on it that had to be addressed at the initial fleshing.  The frame for this one measured 5 x 7 feet inside.  It took a bit more elbow grease to get this one stretched out.  The hide had to weigh three times as much as the first.  

  

When I started scraping this hide I was thoroughly disappointed in how little was coming off.  This hide had a lot more stuff attached to it that had to come off.  I had seen a video of a guy using a wire wheel to clean a hide so I got an angle grinder out and gave it a try.  OMG!!!  What a quick way to clean it.  There was the drawback of stuff flinging all over the place.  Next time I’ll do this outside.  It was raining so I’ll use that as an excuse.  It had to have saved me at least two hours of work.

Now the hides have to dry for a while.  The small one is probably ready to work with but there is a lot of stuff going on right now so it will be a couple weeks before I tackle the rawhide sheath itself.

Leslie will be at the Hole-In-Wall Show in Hohenwald, TN this Friday and Saturday, May 2&3.  I will set up a small table at Ace Music Fest on Saturday May 3^rd. 

26th Annual Batson Bladesmithing Symposium 2014

26^th Annual Batson Bladesmithing Symposium 2014

First day off in who knows how long???  I left W’boro at 06:45am.  The ride was nice, and weather was fine.  Got down to Tannehill State Park by 10:30am and registered right away. I found a camp site close to all the action and a small creek, got my sales table out, set my tent up and ate some lunch.  The next thing was to hit the vendors before the first afternoon class.  Bought some curly maple blocks and steel.

Batson Bladesmithing Symposium is held at Tannehill State Park near McAlla, Alabama www.tannehill.org .  This was the 26^th year the event took place.  It was held April 10-13.  The cost for the weekend is $100 which includes a 1 year membership to the Alabama Forge Council, the bi-monthly subscription to their magazine Bituminous Bits, all the classes Friday-Sunday, camping at the park and a BBQ dinner.  As the name implies it is primarily forge oriented.  It is sponsored by the Alabama Forge Council www.alaforge.org and the American Bladesmith Society www.americanbladesmith.com . 

Demonstrators from around the country come to teach at the facilities.  This place is outfitted with everything necessary to teach all aspects of knife making and forging.

It all starts on Thursday with a demonstrator’s dinner.  Registration and check in begins bright and early on Friday at 7:00am with classes and demonstrations starting at 8:00am.  Classes run from 8-10am, 10-12pm, 1-3pm and 3-5pm Friday. Saturday and Sunday classes run 8-10am & 10-12pm.  There are 3-5 classes to choose from for each time slot. 

Your choice of classes include: forging, blade grinding, handle & guard construction. wire inlay, leather sheaths, jigs & fixtures, knife design, many Damascus techniques, engraving, scrimshaw and more.  This is by no means all that are offered.  Most of the classes are offered more than once so the chances are good that you’ll get to attend all the ones you want to.

The classes I took Friday afternoon were both taught by Master Smith Joe Keeslar.  The first was on leather sheaths.  He has done leatherwork since he was a teen.  The quality of his work is amazing and makes it look so easy.  Joe went over design, cutout and putting together a leather sheath from start to finish.  He demonstrated different ways of stitching as well as sheath embellishments.  The second class was on knife design.  We all discussed primary uses for knives and their particular design criteria.  Joe had us each design a large and small knife.  Our designs were constructively critiqued and we all ended up with nicer designs.  He asked us to create the knives we designed and bring them back next year to show.

You will find tailgate sales around the grounds.  There are all kinds of knife related wares for sale.  Some of the things this year included grinders, anvils, post vices, hammers, forges, firebrick, abrasive belts, leather, books, dvd’s and lots of steel.  Much of the steel is round bar for forging.  Aldo Bruno drives down from New Jersey to sell his steel.  His truck is loaded with flat bar.  He sells quite a bit of steel to make Damascus.  He usually makes a killing just after any Damascus class lets out.  The best part is no shipping charge when you buy from any of the vendors.  Anyone is allowed to put their materials out for sale and you just price everything and leave a bucket to put the money in and you’re good to go.  It is best to buy what you want fast because a lot of it goes quick and then it’s not available.  

I sat and talked with Aldo Bruno for a while.  He talked about some rough times this past winter and his hopes of doing more for all the knife makers out there.  His steel is some of the best available and he has recently purchased a waterjet machine.  He’s in the process of getting it ready to cut knife blanks out.  Many companies with a waterjet cater to differing industries, but Aldo wants to work for the knife makers alone.  If you produce a knife or knives over and over, the cutout work can be done on a waterjet.  The best part is you can buy your steel, have the blades cut out there and shipped to you from one company.  That will save a bunch on buying steel one place, shipping to another and paying for return shipping.  If you make a bunch of the same knife, this process can save you time and money.  I can see having my regular hunters and utility knives cut out, but most of mine are one-offs so those could only be done by me.  Aldo said the services should soon be offered on his website www.newjerseysteelbaron.com. 

There are going to be more forged knives coming out so it just may be the time to join the ABS.  I’ve wanted to join for some time and after talking to JS Dwight Phillips from Lawrenceburg, TN he made me want to join now even more.  Dwight is a Journeyman Smith in the ABS and has his 5 knives almost ready to judge for his Master Smith stamp.

After classes were done on Friday there was a free BBQ offered from 5-7pm on the other side of the park.  They had burgers, smoked sausage, hot dogs and some of the best baked beans I ever ate.  The comradery was great and all the talk was about knives and knife making. 

The evening festivities commence back at the Vulcan pavilion with a cutting competition.  Everyone is allowed to enter the competition.  All you need is a sharp knife with a forged blade 10 inches or under & total length not over 15 inches.  The handle must be pinned and have a wrist thong for safety.  There were 8 guys that entered and their knives were checked over by the safety official.  The events are random each year and this year 6 events were scheduled.  1^st event was to take one chop at a 2x4 at a 45 degree angle.  The deeper you chopped the more points you got.  2^nd event you had to stab the knife tip 1/8-1/4 inch into a 2x4 and pry out a chip.  Most did it but one tip was broke off.  Glad it wasn’t my knife.  3^rd event was to poke a tennis ball with your knife tip and lift it to shoulder height. 4^th event had a roll of toilet paper with a few sheets hanging down and you had to slice it cleanly with out tearing.  5^th event you had to chop a ping pong ball and the 6^th event was chopping a golf ball.  The overall winner for the night was Russell White.  I gotta tell y’all that these events sound way easier than they are to perform.  I competed in 2011 and only accomplished one of the required tasks from that year.  If you haven’t done any of these things give it a try.  There are folks that are professional cutters and can do amazing things with their knives.

Saturday started with classes at 8am.  The class I took was taught by Mickey Wise and was on Old Timey Knives.  Mickey went through the forging process of a small blade.  His hammer blows were easy and it seemed like he hardly hit the steel.  Next he drilled a piece of antler for it.  He then broached the antler to fit the tang snugly using home made scrapers, discussing how we can make or own.  Mickey got out a blade he had previously heat treated and showed us how to pour a pewter bolster.  From that point the bolster had to be cleaned up and feathered into the antler handle. 

The weather in Alabama was beautiful with morning temps of low 50’s and daytime temps of around 80 degrees. 

Classes only go till noon on Saturday with a knife show to start the afternoon off.  The knife show is open from 1-3pm for any demonstrator or attendee to put their knives out for display/sale.  It is held in the open on picnic tables, with a large pavilion nearby in case of inclement weather.  There were about 15 tables set up with a lot of nice knives being shown.  The show usually begins with Rail Road Spike Knife judging.  I’d have to say there were probably a dozen RR Spike knives out.  One was made from Damascus and one had an MS stamp on it.

Next up is the auction conducted by Col. Tim Ryan.  It begins at 3:00pm.  Everything auctioned off is donated for Iron In The Hat by demonstrators, attendees and vendors.  All proceeds go to the Alabama Forge Council building fund.  Many interesting items turn up for the auction as well as some very nice knives.  Joe Keeslar offered a 3 day workshop at his shop which sold for over $600.  This is an interesting part of the weekend.

Saturday evening held the Heat Treat Extravaganza.  Dr. Batson explained heat treat curves and properties of steel during the process.  He then proceeded to heat treat a number of blades with the emphasis on everyone seeing the transformations that take place while heating.  Canola oil was used to quench the blades so we could see what happened in the oil as the steel was being cooled down.  The blades were put into vermiculite until ready to put in the oven.

Usually Tannehill Iron Works does an iron pour on the Saturday of the Bladesmith Symposium which was scheduled on the website.  There was flooding the weekend before so it had to be cancelled.  A group of volunteers prepare the furnace and keep it burning.  It is opened up after dark with the molten steel flowing into crucibles carried by two-man teams and poured into small castings.  You pay a fee of about $20-25 to create your own flat castings.  People from all over the park do their castings during the day and they get to take them at the end of the night.  I watched in 2011 and hoped to do a casting of my touchmark this year.  There will be another pour Sept. 7^th when the Alabama Forge Council has their fall conference at the park.  Tannehill has a lot of history, so if you have a chance to go through the park, I’m sure you will enjoy it.

The final day only has 3 classes at 8-10am and 3 classes at 10am-12pm.  Things are winding down and a lot of folks are packing up and heading out.

If you ever have the opportunity to attend the Batson Bladesmithing Symposium go for it.  The amount of knowledge there is amazing.  Any thing you want to know about forging knives or Damascus is available by simply asking.  You won’t be disappointed