Help with shaping handle on my latest, plus a critique

H

HallHandmade

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Jun 5, 2012
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It's been a couple months that I've actually been making knives (as opposed to just thinking about making knives), and I really would like to step up my game, especially in the design department. I've done about ten knives so far, a couple of them hidden tang. My last hidden tang came out well, but I think I should have refined the lines a bit more. I didn't have a 100% clear vision on the design before I started it.

This hunter is my current project, 5.25" blade, 10" OAL (I haven't cleaned up the blade yet from HT):

GdnU2fI.jpg


My question is regarding shaping the back half of the handle. I am flip-flopping between two ways of doing it. I can contour the handle continuously, with only a small bump in the bottom where the handle transitions into the area for the ring and pinky, or I can cup that area out a bit on each side to give a pocket for those fingers to curl into.

If I go with the concave option, should I contour the handle according to option one first, then carve out the concave area? What is the easiest way to do this? I have a foredom (basically a hopped up dremel), so I was thinking a burr might be a good solution there. Does the handle design look solid as far as form meeting function, and also does it seem to mix well with the drop point blade? I think I've got it really close, but I'm not really ready to start cutting yet. I'm working tomorrow, but when I get home I think I will clean up the blade and hopefully start on this one.


Also, I went ahead and ordered my makers mark. This was the final result after a couple bounces back and forth. I went with .75" wide, .875" wide, and 1" wide, do those seem like reasonable sizes to start?
2pukGYk.jpg
 
Your handle shape looks very nice and should work well with your blade shape. You can start with your "option 1" shape and remove the material or you can cut close to the concave shape and remove material from there. Be careful with motorized tools. They will remove more than you want if you aren't paying close attention to what you're doing. I would suggest cutting close to your concave shape leaving a little meat outside the line. Then go in slowly and carefully with rasps, files and sandpaper. You can work quickly enough with files.

Also, I'm guessing 1" seems a bit large for a makers mark (on the ricasso)....at least for a stamp. If you are etching you can find more places to put it. A stamp that large will make a nice leather stamp for you sheaths though.
 
The spine typically looks better with a slight curve to it. I also make my tangs a bit longer. I would have went 2 squares longer into the handle. Your grinds and fit and finish are great, I was really impressed with your first set of knives.
 
The profile is great and I think the Coke bottle shape is preferable to slab sided. I would use a pin with that tang as it's a bit small and tolerance of fit is likely to have a big influence over the "solidity" of the knife
 
A solid design that's been chased by A LOT makers for good reason. Regarding the handle contours, I expect you're just going to have to build a few more before you can have enough information to settle the question with any authority. Suggest you go with what feels right on this one (you study and have good instincts IMHO) and it will be a fine knife either way.

A couple of thoughts.

Drop point doesn't always mean limiting the drop to just the point. You are showing about 2" of dropped spine at either end and about 6" of dead straight in the middle. This one is baked at this point, but down the road, draw up the same profile but build in a single subtle contiguous curve, point to heel, and compare with this. I bet it will be worth your time if you are sweating this level of design detail. (Clarity: leave the X,Y exactly as is on your point, guard top and heel and connect them using no straight lines.) Personal choice obviously and you may love it exactly as is - so grain of salt and all that.

I agree that the tang should be considerably longer - especially on a 5"+ working blade. Grinding in some slight proximal taper will help with setting the guard. I would also make the shoulders smaller for a more substantial transition (seeing alignment weirdness in the bottom shoulder but probably just shadows). Goal would be strength; to have more working steel and less guard material at that junction. And a pin or two on the next one would be good. Drill before HT.

Regarding your mark sizes, your smallest is still larger than the largest version I use personally. I have mine at 0.375, 0.50 and 0.625" wide and burn the smallest one most often. By far. Your mark is more complex than mine. So to make it legible, you probably need a little more real estate but 1" wide may be overkill.

I can tell you are bit; good work Mr Hall!
 
Willie71 said:
The spine typically looks better with a slight curve to it. I also make my tangs a bit longer. I would have went 2 squares longer into the handle. Your grinds and fit and finish are great, I was really impressed with your first set of knives.
Click to expand...

I'm going to definitely be careful with the tang fitment on this one, It seemed long enough when I made it. :(


parbajtor said:
The profile is great and I think the Coke bottle shape is preferable to slab sided. I would use a pin with that tang as it's a bit small and tolerance of fit is likely to have a big influence over the "solidity" of the knife
Click to expand...

As soon as I had the sketch done I knew that I'd need to pin the tang. I think I accidentally drew on a tang length that I had in my head from another pattern.


Andy Lewis said:
A solid design that's been chased by A LOT makers for good reason. Regarding the handle contours, I expect you're just going to have to build a few more before you can have enough information to settle the question with any authority. Suggest you go with what feels right on this one (you study and have good instincts IMHO) and it will be a fine knife either way.

A couple of thoughts.

Drop point doesn't always mean limiting the drop to just the point. You are showing about 2" of dropped spine at either end and about 6" of dead straight in the middle. This one is baked at this point, but down the road, draw up the same profile but build in a single subtle contiguous curve, point to heel, and compare with this. I bet it will be worth your time if you are sweating this level of design detail. (Clarity: leave the X,Y exactly as is on your point, guard top and heel and connect them using no straight lines.) Personal choice obviously and you may love it exactly as is - so grain of salt and all that.

I agree that the tang should be considerably longer - especially on a 5"+ working blade. Grinding in some slight proximal taper will help with setting the guard. I would also make the shoulders smaller for a more substantial transition (seeing alignment weirdness in the bottom shoulder but probably just shadows). Goal would be strength; to have more working steel and less guard material at that junction. And a pin or two on the next one would be good. Drill before HT.

Regarding your mark sizes, your smallest is still larger than the largest version I use personally. I have mine at 0.375, 0.50 and 0.625" wide and burn the smallest one most often. By far. Your mark is more complex than mine. So to make it legible, you probably need a little more real estate but 1" wide may be overkill.

I can tell you are bit; good work Mr Hall!
Click to expand...

Yeah that funkiness in the shoulder is shadow, it is pretty symmetrical in real life. So you're saying just beef up the tang a bit right under that area, then widen out the area that fits into the slot on the guard?

I think I can probably squeeze a bit of extra curve out of this, but maybe as you said, this one is what it is. I think it is reasonably attractive at least, even if not completely refined.

I think that the guy said .75" was as narrow as he could go on that logo, which makes it about .33" tall. I have a gut feeling that I will be using the smallest. Hopefully it works out, fingers crossed at least. I may end up having to mark on the blade for my users, and then have a different stencil and logo if I want to mark on the tang.

I am bit for sure, I've been having more fun doing this than I have much anything else in quite a while. Such a simple object with endless complexity really attracts me for some reason. :)
 
Though I'd check back in with the results. I'm pretty happy with how it came out. I made some slight modifications to my original plan, but the knife turned out pretty much as I envisioned it. I ended up going with a continuous contour. I wanted to make this knife a bit slimmer so it carries nicely, so I didn't really feel like I had enough space to do what I showed in my drawing above. The transition at the swell has a nicely finished corner, but it is a bit hard to see in the pics. The makers mark came out nicely as well. It looks a bit fuzzy in the pics, but it's actually pretty sharp.

I put the blade in between a couple of wet dish sponges to keep it cool, and was able to soften the tip of the tang enough with my mini torch to get a nice cleanly drilled hole for a pin. I went with 5/32" for the pin size, I figured since I wasn't using liners or any other embellishment, a slightly larger pin could add a bit of flair.

As a side note, getting decent pictures of knives is probably harder than making them.

edit: Those shadows at the guard/handle joint aren't really there, it's just the lighting. I went a little crazy making sure that joint was dead smooth.

mYkw8Ye.jpg


UM7Oh9K.jpg


1k6nhyv.jpg


UlVAY5E.jpg
 
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Nice , I personally like everything about it. You should be proud.It's got curves and shines/the fit and finsh are good.Wow ,Good Job!
Eddie
 
Beautiful knife Mr. Hall. Agree with all the above. Proportions, lines, ergos, materials, grinds, f&f - all look excellent from here.

My only minor criticism would be aimed at the size/scale of your mark. I remember your guy said 0.75" was the limit, but ??? Should be an easy fix next order. Or PM me and I'll hook you up with some folks that will get it done right and fast.

Also it seems to me that this level of fit and finish would be worthy of hand finished bevels. But...your grinds are sharp and clean so they look great as is.

You have good instincts and the patience and skill to back them up. So go build another one already!
 
Ian,

That looks really nice. You gonna make the gang at Tru Grit proud :)
 
Really nice.
About the only place I could make a suggestion would be the guard tip. It looks a bit flat/blunt, making the guard have a rectangular profile. Perhaps a bit more taper to a rounded point would have more flow. The overall guard profile should be somewhat egg shaped or trapezoidal.
 
Timbear said:
Really nice again. Your work looks like your an old pro.
Click to expand...

Thanks! I've been enjoying knife making more than anything I've done in quite a while. I'm able to dive in really deep when I have genuine interest in something. Its almost a meditative thing.

Andy Lewis said:
Beautiful knife Mr. Hall. Agree with all the above. Proportions, lines, ergos, materials, grinds, f&f - all look excellent from here.

My only minor criticism would be aimed at the size/scale of your mark. I remember your guy said 0.75" was the limit, but ??? Should be an easy fix next order. Or PM me and I'll hook you up with some folks that will get it done right and fast.

Also it seems to me that this level of fit and finish would be worthy of hand finished bevels. But...your grinds are sharp and clean so they look great as is.

You have good instincts and the patience and skill to back them up. So go build another one already!
Click to expand...

I got the stencils from Ernie. He was terrific working with me through several revisions, but seemed pretty sure that we shouldn't go smaller. I suppose it couldn't hurt to ask him to try.

blank space said:
Wow beautiful wood. Are awesome knife bud.

What is the wood type?
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The wood is stabilized box elder if I recall correctly. I got it as a block down at tru grit, they have some pretty decent pieces down there.

bladsmth said:
Really nice.
About the only place I could make a suggestion would be the guard tip. It looks a bit flat/blunt, making the guard have a rectangular profile. Perhaps a bit more taper to a rounded point would have more flow. The overall guard profile should be somewhat egg shaped or trapezoidal.
Click to expand...

I see what you are saying. I think I could still reprofile it if I taped the blade up carefully. This was my first guard with compound curves, I think I ended up focusing on getting that right and didn't pay enough attention to the overall profile. I noticed it looked a little blocky in that last pic.
 
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