- Joined
- Sep 30, 2007
- Messages
- 20,235
Here's the story of my re-handle of a BK7 (with lots of photos, of course).
You all know what it looked like to start (the top knife in this photo):
Well, since I happened to have this big old chunk of California buckeye burl just laying around:
I decided it would look really sweet on that BK7.
I'm not a complete klutz, but I wanted to duplicate the original curves and contours as closely as possible, so I worked out a deal with my friend and knifemaker James Terrio for him to do most of the heavy lifting on this project.
In the fullness of time, I received this pic from him via e-mail:
Looking good. The next photo was looking even better.
And that's the point at which he mailed the knife to me.
James knows that I like my knife handles a little on the beefy side, but upon receipt, I decided that the handle was too thick. Broke out the 50-grit sandpaper for some final shaping and contouring, then the 100-grit paper, then 400-grit paper, and then a final buffing by hand with a 3M 3000-grit wheel. Here's what it looked like after that:
Never being the kind of person who thinks a job is "good enough," I finished it off with a liberal amount of mineral oil rubbed into the handle, and topped it off by hand-rubbing a light coat of Obenauf's (mostly beeswax) onto it. Here are the final results:
It's been a fun project, and I think it's safe to say I'm very pleased with the results.
You all know what it looked like to start (the top knife in this photo):
Well, since I happened to have this big old chunk of California buckeye burl just laying around:
I decided it would look really sweet on that BK7.
I'm not a complete klutz, but I wanted to duplicate the original curves and contours as closely as possible, so I worked out a deal with my friend and knifemaker James Terrio for him to do most of the heavy lifting on this project.
In the fullness of time, I received this pic from him via e-mail:
Looking good. The next photo was looking even better.
And that's the point at which he mailed the knife to me.
James knows that I like my knife handles a little on the beefy side, but upon receipt, I decided that the handle was too thick. Broke out the 50-grit sandpaper for some final shaping and contouring, then the 100-grit paper, then 400-grit paper, and then a final buffing by hand with a 3M 3000-grit wheel. Here's what it looked like after that:
Never being the kind of person who thinks a job is "good enough," I finished it off with a liberal amount of mineral oil rubbed into the handle, and topped it off by hand-rubbing a light coat of Obenauf's (mostly beeswax) onto it. Here are the final results:
It's been a fun project, and I think it's safe to say I'm very pleased with the results.
That's nice.
