About five years ago, just a little way into my knifemaking journey, I was in a stage where I was scrounging materials from all over. One of the things I came home with was a drag harrow tooth from my great-grandfather's farm near Spicewood, TX. It was too large for the capability of my forge at the time, so it sat on my workbench waiting on a "round tuit." Last July, I built a forge that could handle it. Last November, at a Big Country Knife Club hammer in, I finally forged the blade. Now that we're into March, I finally have the blade finished out. I figured with the rustic background of the steel, I should go with a complete rustic theme, and since it was family steel, I'd use family wood. We had our hardwood floors in our house refinished in January, and this material is some of the red oak floor boards. They were stamped on the backs as harvested in 1955 and milled in Gilmer, TX. A wrought iron guard, fluted ferrule, and fileworked finial finish out the package. This knife was built takedown, but is now glued. The right hand sheath is tooled with an oak leaf theme, to match the traditional "vibe" and the handle material. The steel is unknown, but tests at RC 59. The knife has a 600 grit hand finish and a convexed edge grind. Oal is 10 1/2" with a 5 3/8" blade. The blade is about 1/8" thick at the ricasso, with distal taper. I was hoping to put this one in front of Lin Rhea and Jerry Fisk for some critical feedback, but our event was rained out. As it turns out, the man who was going to host the event ended up buying the knife <img src=' http://www.americanbladesmith.com/ipboard/public/style_emoticons//smile.gi f' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':)' />

Mark side

Back side