Things don't always work out how you hope - Broken Knife Scales

This post is to show that, like anything in life, lapidary and stone cutting does not always work out as one would hope it does.

As Christmas is almost upon us, I have been working on a few little projects that will hopefully end up as very personalised gifts for a few members of my family. I recently cut some scales for a Victorinox Swiss Army knife for my Dad - I decided to take this idea one step further and cut larger scales for a larger knife for my Mum in the hope that she would end up with a gift that was not only aesthetically pleasing, but also useful in her daily activities.

I went on a search, and thanks to a couple of the guys on the Aussie Lapidary Forum, I located a business based out of Tasmania - AKC Mail Order Knives. These guys were brilliant by the way! Extremely helpful and friendly and I had the knives in my hand within a couple of days!

I bought 2 knife blanks from them, one being a large bread knife which I considered one of the more usable knives for my Mum:

Bread Knife Blank

My initial problem with this knife was the size of the scales needed. I had quite a few slabs of material which were large enough to accommodate 2 scales big enough for this particular knife, but very few of them were in good enough condition. Many had cracks running through which would effect the integrity of the scales, others had holes and pits throughout. I ended up choosing a large slab of Jasper which appeared to be in pretty good shape. I went to work by marking up the scales using the knife itself as the template and created the pre formed shapes:

Pre Form Stone Bread Knife Scales

Around 4 hours after initially marking out the shapes on the stone I ended up with 2 scales for the knife. I was relatively happy with the resulting large cabs, even if the material itself didn't end up with the shiny finish I was hoping for (this particular jasper did not polish as well as others I have cut):

Stone Bread Knife Scales

This was where my happiness ended and everything turned sour! I was in the midst of bluetacking the scales to the knife to ensure that they were the right shape and size when this happened:

Broken Stone Bread Knife Scales

A natural weak spot within the stone gave way and one of the scales snapped in two! Several curses were thrown, none of which can be repeated in this forum, and I realised that not only did 4 hours of work go down the drain, but possibly the only material that I had which was of suitable size turned out to be useless!

So as the title of this entry suggests, not all of my projects turn out the way I plan. I have a collection of half cut cabochons, broken cabochons or slabs that are cracked or broken and have been discarded because of some weak spot or crummy looking pattern. Most of these rejects can, and probably will be reused at some point, but generally get sworn at or thrown at the time!

I have since turned my shed upside down in search for more suitable material for this particular project. I have located a couple of different options for attempt number 2 - I figured I needed at least one back up plan! I will be sure to keep you all updated as it progresses, but I am certainly running out of time before Christmas arrives to get this one finished! I will hopefully get it done this weekend without any further hiccups!

Keep an eye on this blog and my Facebook page - I will upload photos of the finished project when I get it completed!

Until next time!

Update: Check out the finished piece here! I managed to get the knife done in time for Christmas and my Mum loved it!