My haul from the Gembloux show

 

Ok as promised, here are the things I bought:

4 pieces of fossil seacow bone. Not stabilized. I am going to do the stabilizing myself, and got these pieces for a good price as part of a bulk deal.

Some small tools. I am going to use the diamond plates as a substitute for sandpaper during sanding, just to see if this is more efficient than sandpaper.

 

Some small pieces of stabilized caribou bone I picked up for the bright colors, mainly because I know my youngest daughter would love them (and she does 🙂 )

A piece of titanium damascus. Just for the sake of using it for bolsters to see how it goes. I’ve never used it before and it might be cool.

Some antler and a couple of pieces of stabilized wood.

A huge solid chunk of mammoth ivory. I got it pretty cheap and it should be enough to make 2 solid knifehandles. And 2 small pieces of stabilized mammoth molar, to be used as bolster material.

Some steel. The top bar is from the odds and ends bin at Achim’s table. It’s CroNiDur, which is a steel for stainless roller bearings. It cannot be bought in flat stock normally. Achim buys it in 90 mm round stock and forges it down. This was a dirt cheap leftover. It needs specilized heat treatment but should make perfect kitchen knives. We’ll see. I just bought it for fun.

Then we have 5 kilos of 15N20 and 5 kilos of O2. I still have some, but you can never have too much.

Then 2 long bars of 1/4″ by 2″ XC130 which is pure carbon steel with 1.3% carbon. Should be very good if I wanted to do something with a hamon or so. Again, no immediate projects for it but I might as well pick it up without needing to pay shipping.

And then 3 bars of XC75. My daughter has started forging, and wanted to start making some knives. Imo this should be the perfect steel to begin with, because it has the correct size and should forge easily enough.

2 stabilized fossil walrus rib handles, 1 knob of fossil walrus rib, and 3 fossil walrus ribs. I bought the stabilized handles because they felt very good in my hand, and I bought the ribs because as I mentioned I want to start stabilizing stuff and this looks good material.  And the knob can be stabilized and cut for bolsters.

A felt polishing belt. Always wanted to try one.

And there we are. This is what I bought at the knife show. Ok, this is not technically 100% true. I also bought a knife. Or rather, I agreed to buy a knife. I paid it yesterday with a bank transfer (I didn’t have enough cash and the guy didn’t have a payment terminal) and it should be with me shortly. More on that later!