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Comment by Tobias Gibson on February 7, 2013 at 7:33

Surprisingly, you're digging with the grain of the antler, so the center is like the marrow of the bone, and fairly easy to dig through.  The problem is the further you get from the center the harder the antler gets. This is what the triangular file is for -- filing through the harder part of the antler. This is also where the blisters and and blood seems to come in.

I've done this twice now.  It takes about 1-2 hours. if you can attack both ends.  The first knife, the skinner, took much longer.  I had to dig out a five inch hole using files to fit the rat tail tang.  The antler also wears out the file. I'll need to get a new file before I attempt the next one.

Comment by Ron Cooper on February 7, 2013 at 1:16

That's amazing! Slow going, I bet, huh?