Gaines, what kind of scabbard and handle is that in the first pic?...Looks unique!
That's an old Spanish bayonet that I got from an Army/Navy store when I was a very young kid. I don't know why my dad let me buy that or bought it for me, now that I think about it, haha; although, it was very dull before I reshaped it. There was a big worn spot near the handle, so I made a straight edge down there and left the thick part near the top. I also added all those "teeth" on the back. I pretty much made it my version of the "tracker knife" like the one on the movie "the Hunted." I cut the knob off the front of the hand-guard, too. One or all of those things apparently weighted it very well, because I can throw that thing down at the ground and have it sticking straight up 9 out of 10 times.
The scabbard is metal. I made the belt knob into a hammer (just filed it flat) about a year or so ago - works well. I used my first tanned snakeskin, a timber rattler, to wrap it (it's glued on there, for life!), but it didn't come out very well (very yellow). That was before I knew how to tan a snake the right way. I am thinking about wrapping a new skin over it, so it will look better and match the handle. The other timber rattlers I've done since then came out very similar looking to the gator handle.
The scales on the handle used to be wood, but I wrapped each one of them with a leftover piece of my first (and only, to date) alligator I tanned. They turned out very nice.
- Gaines
