Has anyone besides myself ever made their own scales and complete a knife build with knife kits? Here’s one I completed last year but couldn’t remember “If” I ever showed the complete finished product. I had some scrap wood from PRS guitar shop that they gave to a neighbor of one my younger brothers and he in return gave me a wheel barrow full of some really nice wood scraps. Seems the PRS guitar shop is very,very picky with what wood goes in their guitars and to the customer that’s a great thing knowing a company culls out any blemish’s but why throw it away? The guy that let my brother have it was actually burning it in a fire pit outside and had it stacked up under a shelter and stored in other dry places . Anyway I ripped down what I think is Shedua wood and it really made a nice set of scales for this knife I finished. Believe me there was a lot of hand polishing with 2000 grit sandpaper by hand to hide the guard pins and shine it up from what appeared to be a hard sandblasted finish but that’s part of finishing a knife and I loved the time “Tinkering “ in my shop so I would have a good knife for hunting or camp use. Here’s the finish knife and I made my own finish with bees wax and pine rosin and gently heated the mixture and rubbed in several coats for a very smooth feel in the hand. Here’s the guard as it appeared once the pins were installed .

The wood I chose from the scraps

Of coarse that is the dark wood which I believe to be Shedua but could be wrong ?

Here’s the olive drab liners I cut and installed to dress up the handle and I love olive drab green . Getting there slowly but it turned out well I think ?

The mosaic pins I cut and used to dress it up some .

Here is the scales as I just finished rough shaping

Now let’s just skip some picture and let you see the finished knife .

Here’s just some other scraps he gave me I haven’t used yet.

Nice, thanks for sharing...

Nice job Keith.

Outstanding Keith! Well done.

That’s cool! I have not done a kit, but I have replaced scales with my style of wood and sometimes reshaped the blade. The top one is curly maple, middle one is ash.

I have don a lot of kits. I have used several off ebay. Here is one, Wood River.

Some mighty fine work there Fellas. never have tried a knife kit before, yours came out very nice indeed. the finish can make or break how good anything looks, can even make something look very good just because of extra time and effort. Experience in finishing things is something that really stands out

Those are some real beauties for sure!!!!

Alot of talented people grat job

Great work. Watch what kind of steel you are getting in kits. A lot of them are 440 stainless, too soft to hold a good edge. If it is 440C it has enough carbon to be pretty decent.

Man you struck gold on that wood. A lifetime supply of scales,bow tips & overlays. >>>----> Ken

Texas Knives blanks. Top two have cocobolo scales and bottom is Iron wood.

The middle blank looks similar to yours Keefer. It had a lot more metal in the handle that I took the grinder to. Everybody likes the feel of it in their hand. Stout and very sharp.

Nice job Keith! I’ve been doing it for the last 40 years or so. I just made one for a lady at church and I’d post a photo but I didn’t take any! Fun stuff! Lance

Lance, You inspired :e to do a knife blank some time ago with a blank you sent me. Here it is with some Ziricote scraps I had

Some others I. Did last year as well

Oh my! I do have a fondness for drop points. Too many knives and not enough years to try them all.

Keep the photos coming!

Nice work fella's.

yep, some real beauties. it is amazing what you can do with a great imagination and some stuff to work with. I too love the drop points, had 2 really nice ones years ago but my son "borrowed" them and never saw them again, figure they went for beer needs at the time. Love those dark handles, just pure beauty

While not scales on it this is my first and only knife I will likely ever make. A very old file from my Grand Dad's stuff. Made it with a grinder and belt sander. Managed to keep the heat down and it hold an edge very well. Wood is Padauk in the handle. Took me a couple tries to get the hole drilled correctly. Not scales but still pretty wood. Also made the sheath out of one piece of leather. Blade is right at 4".

Great jobs Gents.

Another with sheath.

I’ve lost count of the knifes I’ve made, the problem I seem to have is hanging on to them. I’ll make a new knife and a friend will admire it and somehow they seem to end up with it! Here’s the latest one, hopefully I’ll get to keep this one.

Yep, made a few over the years. Here's a couple.

wow Cotton, that is a real beauty, man, that's a keeper in my book

Keefer that's a good looking knife.

Nice looking knives, I really like the mosaic pins. I made a Koval Bowie knife kit about 35 Years ago, work knife in the garage now. Good bow scraper. You can do some interesting things with different pins. Here is a slingshot I made with jeweled pins from aluminum tubing and red crystals. Wood is panga panga, 304 SS and red fiberglass core. Has the heft of a Walther PPK.

Here’s a clip point I gave to one my younger brothers with some Ziricote scales from the scraps he got.This knife blank was from Smokey Mountain knife works and my first try of adding scales. I used some savaged piano brass hinge pins that fit perfectly into the holes .

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