Wooden Arabian Knife (Khanjar)

turn an old log to a beautiful inlaid Arabian Khanjar!

• The first step is to choose or draw a design that you wish to make, here i chose to make an arabian knive or khanjar خنجر with a handle inlaid with glass jewelery and an antique looking pin on the pommel.
• i cut a wood log in half, with a height about 26 cm and 6.5 cm in diametre, the wood has seasoned alot on the balcony under full sun and rain so its a bit decomposed on the outer look.
• the wood is from the tree Melia Azedarach, which really has a tough grain.

• Using a handsaw and a BIG wooden hammer i made, i carved the rough shape of the Khanjar, i also used a small wide U chisel since the rough shape is already, small.
• then i carve the main shape of the knive with a sharp razor.

• With the razor, i start shaping the whole knife and rounding the corners of the handle and smoothing the wooden blade .
• Continue removing wood from the blade to give it a sturdy shape, then with a hard sandpaper sand it till it has a straight surface on the sides of the wooden blade, you should also sand the top and bottom to give smooth round, at the bottom sand it diagonally to give it a cutting edge
• i draw the handle shape on the handle and carve it with the razor,then draw circles where jewelry inlaying should be

• im really sorry since some steps wheren't captured during inlaying.. so i'm gonna explain by words.
• after carving the main shape i choose the jewelry colors and sizes, then with a driller i make shallow holes where the jewelry should be placed, the holes of course match the size of the jewelry which is 4 mm for the small ones and 5mm for the purple ones, as for the pommel, i chose an antique looking pin which kinda looks like a turks or arab hat from above
• before inlaying, i sand the whole knive with smooth sandpaper, then i sent the knive to laquer it, which gives it a nice glossy look, and preserve the wood better.
• then i start putting wood vinyl or wood glue on the bottom of every peace then inlaying it in the handle with a nice push downwards (although some peaces are higher than others but who cares! that's my first try) and that took me a lot of patience, ALOT.

16 hours of hard work from log to full handmade arabic khanjar

hope you like it :D