First try at checkering

J

Jason Fry

Knifemaker / Craftsman / Service Provider
Joined
Jun 5, 2008
Messages
3,160
I had a friend give me a set of checkering tools. I had asked if he had a checkering file, but he brought me a set of gunstock checkering tools. Not being one to let a good gift go to waste, I immediately hatched this idea for a checkered Texas Ebony bowie handle. Also not being one to tackle a big complex knife without a test run on a new technique, I worked on the test run knife all day yesterday. This is what I came up with. The knife is 1084, RC 60 with a tapered tang and a 1200 grit hand finish. The bolsters are 416, square fit and mirror polished. The handle is Texas ebony, checkered. OAL is 8 1/2. Thanks for looking.
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Better to practice on a piece of flat wood and not set into save-able work until you get the spacing and depth consistency down. You will get a running start on acceptable work if you go to a 3 row tool rather than trying to space your lines with a two row tool.
 
I agree, Nomo. I obviously had a time getting the line spacing to work. My two row cutter was dull and had a hard time getting the lines correct. I had a three line cutter also, but it was much coarser than the others and was tough to use on such a small area. I did about four pieces of scrap before I tackled the handle, but they were all flat. The curve of the knife handle gave me trouble as well. Once I figured out that I couldn't recover the line spacing issues, I didn't spend as much time on uniformity of depth. It's checkered, but that's about it.
 
That's good work, Jason, but I hope you get to the point you can checker on a rounded surface, rather than an inset area as I see here.
 
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