A while back my good friend sleek gifted me a beautiful knapped knife artifact. He also included a piece of a deer leg bone from his first deer. And a bit of pine pitch. His hope was for me to assemble it and finally place the old stone in its home.
I had never attempted anything like that before. But I was confident I could put it together. The other day while home on medical leave I decided I needed a project that wasn't physical and I could mainly sit down. So I pulled out all of the pieces and began.
First I needed to get the bone cleaned up. So I boiled it just like you do a eourapean style mount. Then after I got it all cleaned up and white as snow, I let it cool completely. Then I filed and fit the blade to the bone. There was a little sideways wiggle I didn't like so I trimmed some river cane down to help shim it up. Then heated the pitch over a candle and formed it to a nice smooth fit. Then I wrapped it with whitetail back sinew from a deer I killed a couple of years ago. I chewed the sinew till it was ready.
It looked ok, but the handle just stuck out. So I roughed it up some and held it over a candle that was smoking. I done this a couple of times, then wiped it all down. I got this nice grey/antique type look that I think is really cool.
This is the first time I've done something like this and it was a really fun little project. I hope you guy's enjoy it as much as I did. I would like to see if anyone has any suggestions for a display stand or something like that. Thanks for looking.
Patrick
