Carved my Opinel handle... and I like it;-)

 Had an old Opinel lying around not doing anything. Sticks had a post some time ago on his highly recommendable blog where he measured the blade of an Opinel and estimated it to about 62 HRC... I could not believe it, for I had always estimated mine to about 56 HRC after testing it against a Karesuando Uddeholm 1770 blade. I reality-checked once again (File, mild steel), and he may be right. I hope to test mine just because it got me really inspired. Thanks, bro, for that, opens up a whole lot of new possibilities for me (edge-annealing, selective annealing!).

It´s a great knife that simply feels good, I was just not so enthused about the somewhat plain handle.... since my last attempt at making a ring lock from scrap did not work out so well, I decided to simply carve the handle a bit. It´s my trademark red dragon (Yr Ddraig Coch DDyry Gwychwyn;-)!!). Top is a simple one on the quart side, and below one after a few beer and too much coffee;-), no harm done, really, that they are differnt from each other, they are on different sides, after all;-). I realized after doing so, that those are two dragons guarding the blade... art goes funny ways sometimes, and it reminds me of some La Tène finds of sword chapes, where there were Celtic designs on two bronze "dragons" or beasts, "guarding" the sword in its sheath.... too much sun today, maybe...;-)