- Joined
- Feb 28, 2002
- Messages
- 13,348
Some of you may recall that a couple months ago I spent a weekend at Dan Farrs place forging out a bowie and hunter blade.
You can read about it all here:
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=411097
Well, this past weekend I had the opportunity to return and learn a thing or two about handles.
The following is VERY photo-intensive, so if you are on dial-up, please see the pics here.
http://www.fototime.com/inv/A796BF162AE4D0E
And if you dont like in-progress type threads, flee while you still can.
First step was to decide on what type of handle I would go with for the bowie. The primary choices were between a more traditional and conservative design, and something that would place ergonomics and function first.
Dans handle design for his competition cutter is about the best I have ever come across for a hard working big knife. Superb control and comfort. I decided to go with a modified version of that design a bit thinner, more elongated and with a touch less drop (all to better suit the different blade shape of my knife versus his chopper).
Next step was to pick out a handle material. As it happens, Dan had a pretty good supply of my absolute favorite wood black walnut so I went with that:
Here we see all the different pieces of the handle layed out. When you see the final product, recall that this handle is comprised of no less than 14 separate parts (the three pins and lanyard tube are not pictured).
Shaping out the slot for the tang to slide into that solid block of walnut:
Then after each piece is cleaned, sanded, slathered with adhesive and stacked onto the tang, it is all clamped together:
While that contraption was left to dry, we moved onto the hunter handle. Same basic process. Here is the blade with the final handle design:
Dan wanted to show me how to do a mortise fit, so we went with a two piece approach on this one. Black walnut was selected again, but from a different block this one showing some unusual (in my experience, anyway) red tones:
..end Part 1 of 3
You can read about it all here:
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=411097
Well, this past weekend I had the opportunity to return and learn a thing or two about handles.
The following is VERY photo-intensive, so if you are on dial-up, please see the pics here.
http://www.fototime.com/inv/A796BF162AE4D0E
And if you dont like in-progress type threads, flee while you still can.
First step was to decide on what type of handle I would go with for the bowie. The primary choices were between a more traditional and conservative design, and something that would place ergonomics and function first.
Dans handle design for his competition cutter is about the best I have ever come across for a hard working big knife. Superb control and comfort. I decided to go with a modified version of that design a bit thinner, more elongated and with a touch less drop (all to better suit the different blade shape of my knife versus his chopper).
Next step was to pick out a handle material. As it happens, Dan had a pretty good supply of my absolute favorite wood black walnut so I went with that:
Here we see all the different pieces of the handle layed out. When you see the final product, recall that this handle is comprised of no less than 14 separate parts (the three pins and lanyard tube are not pictured).
Shaping out the slot for the tang to slide into that solid block of walnut:
Then after each piece is cleaned, sanded, slathered with adhesive and stacked onto the tang, it is all clamped together:
While that contraption was left to dry, we moved onto the hunter handle. Same basic process. Here is the blade with the final handle design:
Dan wanted to show me how to do a mortise fit, so we went with a two piece approach on this one. Black walnut was selected again, but from a different block this one showing some unusual (in my experience, anyway) red tones:
..end Part 1 of 3
As I should be.
.
or both. 
