I’ve been dreading this part, but since I’m not terribly enthused today about carving steel, I’ll make stands for the knives I’m going to present at the upcoming 1st Annual Seattle International Knife Show. I’ve decided a Norse-style dragon head would look good, so I’ve cobbled together a plan, and started to make the thing. I’ve used a Forstner bit to drill the mouth hole, and will use my bandsaw to cut out the head shapes.
Above, I’ve used two large washers for the beginnings of eyes, superglued them together and carefully step-drilled (several passes with sequentially bigger drill bits) five holes for copper rivets. I go slow and try to keep the glued together washers cool so they don’t separate and destroy my carefully indexed holes – they need to match up on both sides. I’ve also marked the interior of matching holes on each side so I know how to match them up again. Then, I located one of the washers on one side, drilled the first hole, inserted a copper rivet to keep that hole indexed, and then drilled a second hole, inserting a copper rivet in it. Then with the washer immobilized by the two rivets, I drilled the rest of the holes, as well as a 1/2 inch diameter hole for the center of the eye.
In the second image, you can see the test fit with the poniard in it’s rough position. Looks good, now on to the next steps, starting with gluing the head/neck into a matching notch in the main body block.
Above, I’ve cut a notch into the walnut block so the head piece will fit closely in it, glued it into place, and drilled and pegged three dowels into the neck to keep things sturdy. I’ve also used my bandsaw to cut the rough shape of the stand.
Here’s a view from the top. You can see I’ve also cut the vertical profile of the stand as well. I’ll use my Foredom™ flex shaft grinder and a quick-cutting carbide Typhoon™ bur to round things over.
Here
, I’ve carved the rough shape of a Viking-style dragon, and used a torch to “ebonize” the wood. I’ve also installed the metal eye parts and peened the copper rivets over. The poniard is just sitting in place to see how it will look…
And, above is the finished stand. I’ve forged a steel tongue, and lathe-turned a boxwood peg for the center of the eye. The steel tongue turned out to require a lot of fiddling with to get its’ shape correct.
