Blued Richard J Necker with Stabilized Hawaiian Koa Handle Scales

[SpyderPhreak]

It took me about 5 months to get around to getting this all done, but I finally got my Richard J necker done!

Here's how it looked when he sent it to me:

Here are some in progress shots. The first ones are gluing up the scales. The wood is extra-fancy stabilized Hawaiian Koa that I bought from Mark at burlsource. Wasn't very easy to cut it this thin (I messed up on the first set). I drilled 3 ~1/8" holes through the handle blank to help the West Systems G-Flex epoxy hold.

Initial shaping on the belt sander:

Started hand sanding. Dry:

 

[SpyderPhreak]

Wet:

Getting Closer:

Once I was satisfied with the wet sanding down to 1,500 grit, I applied numerous thin coats of TruOil on the handle scales, lightly buffing with #0000 steel wool till smooth between coats. After about 9 or 10 thin coats of TruOil, it had reached glassy smoothness, but has a satin finish from the steel wool. I decided to finish it off with some Ren Wax to give it more shine.

Once I was done with the handle scales, I decided I wanted to blue it, thinking the blued steel would look drop-dead sexy with the Hawaiian Koa. Unfortunately, the Oxpho blue reacted very strangely with the metal, and it didn't turn out so great. Not sure why. I did everything I was supposed to, even bought a new bottle. I swear, that stuff doesn't like me anymore. The first few times I used it, everything turned out GREAT. The last two or three times haven't gone so well. It still turned out pretty good overall, and only in bright direct light can you see the strange patterns in the bluing. What's odd is looking back at some of the pics I took before bluing it, you can see similar markings in the bare steel. I don't know if it is some weird tempering or what. Oh well, still looks pretty great in person! The chatoyance in this piece of Koa is unreal! Looks like highly polished Tiger's Eye. Just AWESOME!!! I love it!!!

Anyway, here are the pics of the final product! A couple different angles of both sides. I forgot to get a spine shot of the handle; I'll have to do that tomorrow.

I've been using it a TON, especially for little things around the house. The thin grind is such a good slicer, especially with Richard's edge! Unfortunately, I bunged it up when buffing the blade with the Dremel. I slipped, and hit the edge with the chuck. Made a pretty nice chip, and messed up about 3/4" of the edge. Nothing I couldn't fix though, but my edge itsn't as straight as RJ's was. It wasn't my best day at the grinder, that's for sure, but it'll eventually get worked back to a straight edge.

Hope you enjoyed! Cheers!

 

[somebodyelse5]

Love that Koa... lookin really nice.

Good work!