OK I'm a novice. Yes I've built a number of knives for myself and friends. But, simple premade blades and usually wood or some type of synthetic for the handle material.


So if Santa brings a set of sheep horn scales how do you shape them? Any style handle work better?

Ed Fowler wrote an article in, I think, Blade magazine a few years back on using sheep horn for handles but, unfortunately, I threw it out. He has a good and funny section on it in his book, which this might be a link to: https://books.google.com/books...fe%20handles&f=false

For those newbies who don't know, Ed is one of the giants of the custom knife "industry", and is one of the people who showed what a great steel 52100 is by forging ball bearings made out of it into knives. His knives are not noted for beauty, but they just plain work and are quite expensive for what they look like. Like many of us, he is getting somewhat longer in the tooth these days. I wish I could say I have one of his knives but I don't and, at current prices, probably won't.

GO SLOW, MOSTLY BY HAND, THE HEAT FROM POWER TOOLS WARPS THEM