That's awesome Lin! That rivet that holds the handle in place is too cool.

Lin, that's really cool. i have made and seen made several of these smithed rat tails and this is the first riveted handle. i love how it looks, thanks for the idea!

-c

Thank you John and Candace. I will be making more of these and am glad that I took a few pains to notice the different steps and measurements.

Candace, this knife would be a good project for your 1 inch cube. It would be scaled down a tiny bit but would work.

Here are a few more pictures of the ricasso being shaped to bring out the rivet stand off. I'm using a 1/2 inch round bar to serve as a fuller to shape the back and the bottom of the ricasso. I have to go back and forth from back to bottom a couple times, each time drawing the ridge of material toward the rivet with the cross peen. These are light quick blows to use the heat and to not leave deep marks.

This pictures shows the bar in the indent.

This shows the bar moved over to see.

This picture show two in progress. The point is that using the exact same steps and procedure should turn out essentially the same results.

While this is not an important knife in the big picture of knives, its the process that we are trying to perfect, representing more than one small knife. I believe that there are, in this knife, tips and techniques that we all should be using from time to time. If nothing else, it is an exercise in forging. After all this is what we do. Forge. If by chance, forging is a weakness in your skill sets, this would be a great little knife to work on.