Custom letter openers, or?

O.K. how about these two.
I made them both about 25 years ago.

Material in both is from a 40" x 2" x 10" hand-hewn Laotian Rosewood plank an Army buddy brought home from Vietnam in his duffel bag in 1970.
The sucker weighed more then the rest of the contents of his duffel bag I betcha!

I almost died from double pneumonia while sawing up the plank and making these two knives.
I didn't know at the time the dust from this rosewood is very toxic, and Total dust protection is required!!



*The Spiral handle dagger has a 4 ½” 440c stainless blade.
(Considered pretty Good stuff at the time)

*Sea shell motif Guard & butt cap are German Silver.

*Twisted sterling silver wire inlaid in the handle spirals.

*Sheath pins, sheath cap, and fancy twisted wire sheath cap are also sterling silver.

http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j219/rcmodel/SprialDag1.jpg
http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j219/rcmodel/SprialDag2.jpg



The second one?
An Americanized 4" Spey blade Kaiken Tanto perhaps??
One you can shave with if you want?

*Same Laotian Rosewood.

*O-1 blade.

*Copper wire sheath pins and copper water pipe Habaki.

*Brass handle inlays hand scratch engraved.
In hindsight, that was bad idea as I should have made them of copper like the rest of the fittings..

*Mekugi holding the handle on is a traditional Bamboo pin, + a lot of 3M Epoxy!

*Menuki was a lacquered Mt. Fuji clasp pin I found at a garage sale for .50 cents.

http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j219/rcmodel/Tanto1.jpg
http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j219/rcmodel/Tanto2.jpg

Again, pretty worthless for anything, except really stubborn junk-mail envelopes.
But pretty pretty, I thought at least.

rc

Beautiful

R C That is some time consuming, detailed, fine work. Master craftsman work. I figure the hours involved were huge.

I learned the respirator thing a few years ago grinding horn and cocobolo.

very nice sir indeed

Not too shabby RC. In fact, verrrry nice!:)

Nice, very nice.

Rosewood is my favorite variety of wood. The deeper red the better.
Those things look like they belong in the cozy library of a millionaire. Did you really almost die? That's some serious sentimental value if so.

Where can I get a piece of Rosewood to make a cane or fighting stick?

RC,

Those are just flat pretty. In case you do not understand cracker-ese I like them a lot.

The first one is the sort of thing that would have caused some of the old SCA folks I knew to have drowned in their own slobber. It wouod have been too nice for any of their royalty in my mind.

The second is my favorite of the two actually. WHen I went back to try to pick up a Master's degree in Education I was very much a "Student above traditional age" and the whole weapons free campus thing gave me the heebies jeebies. Thus I carried two pencil cases sometimes, one of them being that type of knife as invisioned by Cold Steel. I am embarassed however to compare your art work with the Cold Steel POC I used to carry.

I really like the pins outlining the sheaths and the whole wooden sheath look.

-kBob

Very classic and well made letter openers.

Wow RC you are very good at this knife making thing!! very beautifull work!

Bull