very very nice.........

Very nice!

I just noticed today that Charlie put my knife up as his web page example.

http://www.charlesmayknives.com/

Here's a dumb question but I had a knife class with Joe Szilaski and when he was talking carving, he showed us how to do ivory. He said he hates it because it drys out and cracks. You have to oil it with baby oil. He was carving a cameo for a box some lady commissioned him to make. Pinning it is a problem too. You put blind pins and open up the holes bigger than the pins. The pins you see are cosmetic. You can't peen them or anything... What you have looks like a normal handle with 2 mosaic pins. I have a bag of fossil ivory I've been afraid to work with because I'm not going to oil it and keep it in a box. Have you gone the ivory route before or have any insight into any special concerns for making it into knife handles?

rob p
I have a similar supply of ancient ivory in various degrees of splits, cracks, and other deterioration. I have been "keeping" it in a large storage plastic clothes storage container near up on a shelf near the heat vent in the basement. When I pick a piece to use, I soak it in some wood stabilizer I get here in MI. It is runny and not a filler, but it seems to do a fair job of locking in the ivory from any futher splits and cracks. I fill the cracks with 2 part epoxy before the stabilizer.
Actually I am soaking ALL organic handle material I use in this stuff now.

Yes, that is one really nice knife shown above.
jmho
Tim

Carlie makes some fine looking working knives, and that one is as fine an example as I've seen.