- Joined
- Feb 24, 2013
- Messages
- 28
Hey all, this is my first major post to the forums and I wanted to share my latest work. I have wanted a hand forged knife for a very long time and wanted it to be from a local maker. After a little searching I found Bloodroot Blades near me in Athens, Ga. Everything they do is hand forged from reclaimed steel which I really appreciate. I asked them to only make the blade as I wanted to make the handle myself. We settled on the general design and about a month later I got to pick up the blade.
For the design of the handle I wanted to do something a little different and really make it personal for me. I do a bit of woodworking so the theme that came to mind was dovetails. Id like to show yall the progression of making this handle. This is the first time Ive taken progress pictures from start to finish so please bear with me if you will.
For my layout I used the curve of the spine of the knife for the center line of my dovetails. It took me a couple days sketching different angles and spacing to settle on something I was happy with. The brass I chose for the inlay was 0.6mm, the woods are walnut and curly spalted maple, and the pins are 3/16" brass. You will see a better picture of the templates in a bit.
working on the layout
Here are all the materials ready to go. I glued the templates to each blank and cut them out on the bandsaw. I cut the line, with respect to the blade kerf, since the lead size of the pencil was 0.7mm which would leave just enough room for the brass sheet.
After cutting the wood I moved on to getting the brass ready. Using my dremel I cut the brass to the depth of the wood blanks and squared up the edges with a file.
Probably the part that took the longest was getting all the brass pieces to fit. Each section of the joint had to be individually cut to length, squared up, bent if need be, and the edges chamfered to match the corresponding angles of the brass to brass as well as brass to wood intersections. Here is everything all set to epoxy up. all pieces were wiped down with denatured alcohol to remove dust and grease.
I used a long setting epoxy to give me more work time for all those little pieces. Finally starting to look like a handle blank.
Sadly I missed the next few steps in getting the blank ready. After it came out of the clamps I squared up the blank on my disk sander. The front end of the blank was then set to match the angle of the bolster. Took the knife and handle blank over to the drill press to get the holes for the pins drilled out. Remember that the blank is still one solid piece at this point. I wanted to leave it solid so I only had to drill two holes without having to worry about anything shifting with two blank halves. Once the blank was fitted and drilled it was over to the bandsaw to split it in half. I used a worn out 3/8" blade and took it slow. Worked like a champ as long as you cut the thin side of the brass since all I have is a woodworking bandsaw vs a metal one. Sanded the cut side of the blank halves and did the final fit before epoxying everything together. Its starting to look like a knife!!!!!
Once it cured it was on to shaping. Using a combination of spindle sander, belt sander, dremel, needle files and lots of hand sanding I got it to where I was reasonably happy with it. One of the challenges when mixing wood and metal, as im sure many of you have experienced, is that the wood sands away much faster than the metal. I combated that by using needle files. I felt I had more control with the files to work on a specific part where the brass felt higher than the wood. Sanded to about 1000 to get the majority of the scratches out of the tang and brass. The finish is multiple coats of Danish Oil and given a good buff to polish up the brass.
And here she is!!!!
This is my first knife handle and it certainly gave me some difficulties along the way. There was supposed to be another piece of brass extending the dovetail toward the bolster but I misaligned the handle and it popped out while sanding. The joints are certainly not perfect. Im not used to working with such precision. Keeping curved dovetails accurate to within 0.1mm is no easy task when doing it all free hand. Im pretty happy with how it all turned out all things considered and as long as it holds together I think Ill have this knife for a long time to come. I just dropped it off yesterday to have a leather sheath made by Upland Leather also near Athens.
Knife specs:
Steel: L6 or 1095 (cant remember what I was told heh)
Blade length: 4.5"
Overall length: 8.5"ish
Handle: Walnut and curly spalted Maple with Brass inlay and bolsters
Thanks for taking the time to go through this. Comments, critiques and general thoughts are very welcome!!
For the design of the handle I wanted to do something a little different and really make it personal for me. I do a bit of woodworking so the theme that came to mind was dovetails. Id like to show yall the progression of making this handle. This is the first time Ive taken progress pictures from start to finish so please bear with me if you will.
For my layout I used the curve of the spine of the knife for the center line of my dovetails. It took me a couple days sketching different angles and spacing to settle on something I was happy with. The brass I chose for the inlay was 0.6mm, the woods are walnut and curly spalted maple, and the pins are 3/16" brass. You will see a better picture of the templates in a bit.
working on the layout
Here are all the materials ready to go. I glued the templates to each blank and cut them out on the bandsaw. I cut the line, with respect to the blade kerf, since the lead size of the pencil was 0.7mm which would leave just enough room for the brass sheet.
After cutting the wood I moved on to getting the brass ready. Using my dremel I cut the brass to the depth of the wood blanks and squared up the edges with a file.
Probably the part that took the longest was getting all the brass pieces to fit. Each section of the joint had to be individually cut to length, squared up, bent if need be, and the edges chamfered to match the corresponding angles of the brass to brass as well as brass to wood intersections. Here is everything all set to epoxy up. all pieces were wiped down with denatured alcohol to remove dust and grease.
I used a long setting epoxy to give me more work time for all those little pieces. Finally starting to look like a handle blank.
Sadly I missed the next few steps in getting the blank ready. After it came out of the clamps I squared up the blank on my disk sander. The front end of the blank was then set to match the angle of the bolster. Took the knife and handle blank over to the drill press to get the holes for the pins drilled out. Remember that the blank is still one solid piece at this point. I wanted to leave it solid so I only had to drill two holes without having to worry about anything shifting with two blank halves. Once the blank was fitted and drilled it was over to the bandsaw to split it in half. I used a worn out 3/8" blade and took it slow. Worked like a champ as long as you cut the thin side of the brass since all I have is a woodworking bandsaw vs a metal one. Sanded the cut side of the blank halves and did the final fit before epoxying everything together. Its starting to look like a knife!!!!!
Once it cured it was on to shaping. Using a combination of spindle sander, belt sander, dremel, needle files and lots of hand sanding I got it to where I was reasonably happy with it. One of the challenges when mixing wood and metal, as im sure many of you have experienced, is that the wood sands away much faster than the metal. I combated that by using needle files. I felt I had more control with the files to work on a specific part where the brass felt higher than the wood. Sanded to about 1000 to get the majority of the scratches out of the tang and brass. The finish is multiple coats of Danish Oil and given a good buff to polish up the brass.
And here she is!!!!
This is my first knife handle and it certainly gave me some difficulties along the way. There was supposed to be another piece of brass extending the dovetail toward the bolster but I misaligned the handle and it popped out while sanding. The joints are certainly not perfect. Im not used to working with such precision. Keeping curved dovetails accurate to within 0.1mm is no easy task when doing it all free hand. Im pretty happy with how it all turned out all things considered and as long as it holds together I think Ill have this knife for a long time to come. I just dropped it off yesterday to have a leather sheath made by Upland Leather also near Athens.
Knife specs:
Steel: L6 or 1095 (cant remember what I was told heh)
Blade length: 4.5"
Overall length: 8.5"ish
Handle: Walnut and curly spalted Maple with Brass inlay and bolsters
Thanks for taking the time to go through this. Comments, critiques and general thoughts are very welcome!!
