# Mammoth tooth



## Christian Trajkovski (Oct 19, 2018)

Hello!

I’m thinking about using mammoth tooth as a handle material for the first time next week. Do any of you have any tips? 

When I check the interwebs it seems that it can crumble quite easily.

It will be a small pairing knife in Damasteel with full tang.


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## Gjackson98 (Oct 19, 2018)

I have been thinking about doing the same thing.
Do you stabilized your Mammoth tooth before using? 
I have no experience with it. I am a little bit worry that it might crack lol.


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## tgfencer (Oct 19, 2018)

Talk to Randy at HHH knives. He has a subforum here and a website.


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## Christian Trajkovski (Oct 19, 2018)

I bought my piece stabilized but that isn’t always an guarantee. I have worked with some stabilized burls with voids in them and I suspect that it can be the same with this material.


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## Christian Trajkovski (Oct 19, 2018)

The tooth


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## Christian Trajkovski (Oct 19, 2018)

The blade (the small one to the left)


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## Gjackson98 (Oct 19, 2018)

those are some good looking tooth and blade. Please keep us updated on how this is going!


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## RDalman (Oct 19, 2018)

dentist stuff... special expensive diamond high speed drills, put all your abrasives right in the trash... it will still crack... I think most who use these use lots and lots of superglue. super hard and fragile. have fun.


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## Gjackson98 (Oct 19, 2018)

RDalman said:


> dentist stuff... special expensive diamond high speed drills, put all your abrasives right in the trash... it will still crack... I think most who use these use lots and lots of superglue. super hard and fragile. have fun.


Yikes


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## Christian Trajkovski (Oct 19, 2018)

Well looks like a got an intersting time ahead of me next week 

I’ll update when I begin work probably not until late next week. It will either turn out fantastic or be a total disaster....

If total disaster strikes I’ll just have to use these instead.


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## Christian Trajkovski (Oct 21, 2018)

I got lots of good advice from Randy over at HHH knives, really incredibly helpful!


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## Christian Trajkovski (Oct 21, 2018)

Did some polishing and etching on the blade this afternoon. So we are slowly nearing the glue up...

Before etch


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## Christian Trajkovski (Oct 21, 2018)

After etch


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## Christian Trajkovski (Oct 23, 2018)

Blunted two drills on the mammoth and all my carbide drills are the wrong size . I’ll have to make a trip to the hardware store tomorrow before I can continue...


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## Christian Trajkovski (Oct 25, 2018)

Went to work on the handles today, and it was a LOT more work compared to ”normal” handle materials. But I think that the end result was worth all the extra job, but I will probably not put mammoth on the next knife that I make ;-)


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## Marek07 (Oct 26, 2018)

Christian Trajkovski said:


> Went to work on the handles today, and it was a LOT more work compared to ”normal” handle materials. But I think that the end result was worth all the extra job, but I will probably not put mammoth on the next knife that I make ;-)
> 
> View attachment 44281
> View attachment 44282


Looking good! 
Recently purchased a gyuto with mammoth handle and although it looks pretty good, I find it a bit heavy. Is the weight an issue or doesn't it matter with a petty?


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## Christian Trajkovski (Oct 27, 2018)

Marek07 said:


> Looking good!
> Recently purchased a gyuto with mammoth handle and although it looks pretty good, I find it a bit heavy. Is the weight an issue or doesn't it matter with a petty?




Well I could think that the handle on a gyuto in mammoth tooth would be rather heavy. But the handle is rather slim on this one and the blade is rather large ( the spine is 3,5mm) so I do not feel that it’s an issue... at least not yet .

I’ll find a picture of the spine an post, I’m guessing that the gyuto handle is rather wide?


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## Christian Trajkovski (Oct 27, 2018)

Here are some pictures on the scales compared to the steel on the knife


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## Marek07 (Oct 27, 2018)

Christian Trajkovski said:


> Well I could think that the handle on a gyuto in mammoth tooth would be rather heavy. But the handle is rather slim on this one and the blade is rather large ( the spine is 3,5mm) so I do not feel that it’s an issue... at least not yet .
> 
> I’ll find a picture of the spine an post, I’m guessing that the gyuto handle is rather wide?


Knife not at hand but it is on the wide side - and it's full tang. I know that the standard weight for the 240mm is 232g. With the mammoth tooth rehandle it comes in at a whopping 328g!


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## Christian Trajkovski (Oct 28, 2018)

Well it sounds like the tooth would alter the balance of the knife significantly compared to the normal wood handle


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## merlijny2k (Nov 6, 2018)

Looks stunning! Maybe a silly question but why don't you just resharpen your drills. Takes me 5 minutes tops and knife making wise you are miles ahead of me so.......


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## Christian Trajkovski (Nov 7, 2018)

Well the drills were not anything special (read cheap) so they went into the recycling when the cutting faces got destroyed. 

The main problem was that the drill got maybe one or two mm down into the tooth before it gave up so I would have had to resharpen them almost an infinite amount of times before the three holes on each tang were done.

When I used tungsten carbide tools it just went through the tooth like butter compared to the standard drills.


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