Bonsai Tanto

The first knife I ever made was a small chisel-point tanto, so this knife is a little bit back to my roots. 

The blade is forged from a mosaic Damascus that looks like flowers spinning in the wind.  The point is much more traditionally shaped, unlike the American tanto, with a sweeping swedge grind that gives the blade a peaked spine.  The handle scales are African Blackwood with domed fine silver pins.  The handle ends in a sort of rear-integral shape with Damascus integral bolsters and silver pins.

The sheath was another fun inspiration.  I have a friend who is really into bonsai and I recently made him a small grafting knife for his work.  As I was thinking about his American interpretation of bonsai, I decided to give it a go myself - as a bladesmith and sheath maker.  So I collected small branches from several different types of pine (even tried one from my Christmas tree) and finally settled on one from a small scrubby pine that had very short needles.  I trimmed the branches in true bonsai fashion and arranged it to flow with the shape of the sheath, and them pressed the branch into the leather - thus the end of the process defined the name for the whole piece.