Here's the new piece I've been working on, with the bolivian rosewood. Still a bit more waxing to go, and buffing on the handle, but I'm pretty happy about how the technique has worked so far. The wood looks better in person than the pics, they're just quick snaps on the cutting table in the kitchen so lousy light.
It's quite comfy in the hand, though thin and sleek rather than hand filling, this isn't a heavy work knife. I'm not quite sure what to categorize it as. It's double bevel full height flat grind, with the visible flats left as it comes from HT, just buffed up a bit. It's an interesting look and I kind of like how it enhances the aged appearance. The blade is taken to 400 then somewhat buffed. It comes down to a very thin edge with a barely there secondary bevel except near the tip where I left a bit more for strength.
The wood itself is nice, I'm not super thrilled with it, but my intent was to get some experience with wood rather than micarta or G10 for handles and in that sense I'm very happy with it. I didn't want to start out with expensive stuff since I anticipated various goofs and issues. I've got a couple more knives worth of this material and some nicely figured bocote that's 1/4" and will get used on something more substantial. After that I'll decide if I'm ready to start using nicer pieces of wood or need to stick with the lower cost stuff a bit longer.
Let me know what you think. This was a bit of a test piece, trying out all sorts of new things. It took forever to get this far due to other commitments and probably won't be completely finished until nearly the weekend due to my regular job's schedule this week. I still need to figure out a sheath too, it really needs a leather I think.
It's quite comfy in the hand, though thin and sleek rather than hand filling, this isn't a heavy work knife. I'm not quite sure what to categorize it as. It's double bevel full height flat grind, with the visible flats left as it comes from HT, just buffed up a bit. It's an interesting look and I kind of like how it enhances the aged appearance. The blade is taken to 400 then somewhat buffed. It comes down to a very thin edge with a barely there secondary bevel except near the tip where I left a bit more for strength.
The wood itself is nice, I'm not super thrilled with it, but my intent was to get some experience with wood rather than micarta or G10 for handles and in that sense I'm very happy with it. I didn't want to start out with expensive stuff since I anticipated various goofs and issues. I've got a couple more knives worth of this material and some nicely figured bocote that's 1/4" and will get used on something more substantial. After that I'll decide if I'm ready to start using nicer pieces of wood or need to stick with the lower cost stuff a bit longer.
Let me know what you think. This was a bit of a test piece, trying out all sorts of new things. It took forever to get this far due to other commitments and probably won't be completely finished until nearly the weekend due to my regular job's schedule this week. I still need to figure out a sheath too, it really needs a leather I think.
It's tougher to use properly when doing angled plunges but becomes even more useful too. I have to freehand things a bit rather than just follow the bubble, but even then I use the position of the bubble as a reference as I do it.
