- Joined
- Jan 10, 2015
- Messages
- 1,673
I was recently asked how I do Wa handles, and I thought this is something I could contribute back for all the fine help and recommendations I have received on BF since I started down this knife making road.
Some of my technique was picked up from Walter Sorrells fine knife videos and others who have posted their methods.
Some of it was just worked out by deduction and trial and error.
There are certainly other ways to do this, and no doubt better ways, but this is my way currently of creating a strong Wa handle for my knives.
Comments, critiques, and suggestions for improvement are greatly appreciated.
So let's get on with it.
I like a two part Wa handle with some kind of spacer between the two. When I started I just did an ebony bolster with an ironwood handle and called it done.
I progressed eventually to a single piece of ironwood or redwood burl with a stainless spacers between the bolster or ferrule and the main handle segment.
Lately I've been using an ebony spacer lined with copper on either side, and I like the look very much. So this is the example I will present here. But this method will work with any of the variations I've used.
First I cut the handle into the two segments. I don't get scientific with this, I just want to ensure the lines and balance look right, and that the tang will reach far enough back into the rear portion of the handle to ensure a strong handle / blade combination.
Ensure you cut straight, although I usually use my grinder to true things up a bit.
Once you have the ferrule cut you can draw out the line where you will drill or mill out the tang slot.
I tend to make it just undersized in both width and height and use the tang itself to scrape it out to the correct size. This helps ensure a tight fit if you do it carefully.
OK, that's the front of blade side of the slot. For the rear portion of the slot on this piece I use a mill and mill the slot out slightly large. On my handles I am using a D shape currently which means that one side of the handle is going to need more meet on it than the other, so my slot is slightly off center. This can make things a bit challenging later if you glue something up backwards. You will have to start again.
Once this is done you can use the tang to scrape out the fit. Go carefully here. You don't want to split anything, and you don't want to take off too much so the fit gets sloppy. I don't worry about the face of the handle at this point. It will all get cleaned up later.
At this point (or sooner) I mark my front and rear handle sections with a big arrow pointing to the blade. This also represents the top, and helps me keep things oriented right as I go through the whole process.
This is also where you want to ensure your blade is straight. Getting it straight from the start has a lot to do with careful milling or drilling, and then scraping out the slot carefully. You can make some minor adjustments to the straightness here by scraping the inside of the slot as needed. If it is too far off, best start again. And you don't want to open up the front too much. I do leave a little slop in the front so that some epoxy will fill that slight void.
Next I cut out my spacer materials. In this case I am using copper and ebony. I use a thin piece of ebony and ensure it is square and true in all proportions, especially thickness. For the copper I just cut out a piece of copper pipe, heat it and hammer it flat (gently), and then sand them all flat and true.
I slot the spacers, ensuring my offset is right for each, and then I size them all to the front handle section. I then fit them all up together with the ferrule and insert the tang to make sure all is fitting together and is still straight. Then it's time to glue up the spacer.
With Ebony and Ironwood you know there is a lot of oil in the wood, which can interfere with a good epoxy bond. I use acetone or better, denatured alcohol to remove as much oil as I can. I do this for the faces that will bond to the copper, and also the slot.
I glue the spacer together, then slip the tang through the ferrule and the spacer. This ensures that once the epoxy has hardened it will all fit together.
Note: I have not glued the spacer to the handle ferrule yet. The space will be used as a template to drill first the ferrule rod holes, and then the same for the handle body.
Next I mark out and drill the rod holes in the spacer. I use brass rods, which will give more strength to the epoxy bond for all of the pieces.
Again, nothing scientific about this. I drill them straight, don't get too close to the tang slot, and definitely don't get too close to the handle outside. You don't want to see brass rods appear while shaping your handle...
Get these holes straight! You can make them 'slightly' oversized to allow for epoxy to fill the gap.
Now it's time to drill the rod holes in the ferrule. Set your depth at this point, you don't want to overshoot and come out the front!
If your spacer and ferrule are the same size it's relatively easy to get things lined up for the holes. * Make sure your spacer orientation fits the ferrule * The offset slot can mess you up here, as well as top / bottom orientation.
Once you drill one hole, put the rod in. Then drill the second. This will ensure they are space right and the pieces will come together with a good fit.
Fit them all together when done to ensure it's right.
Now do the handle body the same way, again ensuring the spacer orientation is right. Remember to flip the spacer for this.
If you got it all right, it should all slide together and fit well.
Time to glue it all together. I score the copper, the rods, and the handle ends, but stay away from what will be the handle edges with it. I believe this helps the epoxy get a better bond. You can see my cross-hatch in the pic.
I do this both with a heavy grit sand paper, and also use an exacto blade to score it further.
Clean all mating surfaces again with acetone or denatured alcohol.
I use the same Zpoxy 30 minute working time for this part. It gives me enough time to ensure everything is fitting together well.
After I spread the glue on the surfaces I try to work it into the cross-hatch patterns in the surfaces to ensure a good bond. I am also careful to not fill the tang slot with gobs of epoxy.
I use a screw clamp to gently squeeze it all together, but am very careful not to squeeze out all the epoxy from the joint. Leave a little slack so you still have some glue in the joints, but not so much that it shows a huge gap. It's a fine line for sure.
I then remove the clamp and just put about 10 rubber bands around the handle lengthwise to hold it firmly together until the epoxy sets.
I set the blade into the slot fully during this glue-up, pulling it out several times and cleaning the epoxy off of it until it will slide in and out more or less freely.
I keep checking my epoxy on my mixing tablet so that before it is fully set I remove the tang. You don't want it getting stuck in there at this point. If the epoxy is all but fully set you shouldn't see any creep in the joints and just let it cure now.
After it has set for about 24 hours you can start shaping. I'm not going to show that work.
Once I have the handle shaped I take it out back and hand sand to my own satisfaction, then buff.
I do some sanding on the surface plate as well, only on the angled portion of my ferrule.
My grit for handle finishing usually goes 320, 400, 1200, buff (white compound). Done.
Once your blade is completely done you can glue it all up.
The one thing I do before final glue up is to fill the tang slot with denatured alcohol and let it set for a few minutes, then dump. I might do this 4 or 5 times to ensure no oils remain and I get a good bond between handle and blade. I also score the blade tang with 100 or so grit sandpaper and ensure it is cleaned up very well.
I then use acraglass to bond it all together.
This is the end result. I hope this is helpful to someone.
Some of my technique was picked up from Walter Sorrells fine knife videos and others who have posted their methods.
Some of it was just worked out by deduction and trial and error.
There are certainly other ways to do this, and no doubt better ways, but this is my way currently of creating a strong Wa handle for my knives.
Comments, critiques, and suggestions for improvement are greatly appreciated.
So let's get on with it.
I like a two part Wa handle with some kind of spacer between the two. When I started I just did an ebony bolster with an ironwood handle and called it done.
I progressed eventually to a single piece of ironwood or redwood burl with a stainless spacers between the bolster or ferrule and the main handle segment.
Lately I've been using an ebony spacer lined with copper on either side, and I like the look very much. So this is the example I will present here. But this method will work with any of the variations I've used.
First I cut the handle into the two segments. I don't get scientific with this, I just want to ensure the lines and balance look right, and that the tang will reach far enough back into the rear portion of the handle to ensure a strong handle / blade combination.
Ensure you cut straight, although I usually use my grinder to true things up a bit.
Once you have the ferrule cut you can draw out the line where you will drill or mill out the tang slot.
I tend to make it just undersized in both width and height and use the tang itself to scrape it out to the correct size. This helps ensure a tight fit if you do it carefully.
OK, that's the front of blade side of the slot. For the rear portion of the slot on this piece I use a mill and mill the slot out slightly large. On my handles I am using a D shape currently which means that one side of the handle is going to need more meet on it than the other, so my slot is slightly off center. This can make things a bit challenging later if you glue something up backwards. You will have to start again.
Once this is done you can use the tang to scrape out the fit. Go carefully here. You don't want to split anything, and you don't want to take off too much so the fit gets sloppy. I don't worry about the face of the handle at this point. It will all get cleaned up later.
At this point (or sooner) I mark my front and rear handle sections with a big arrow pointing to the blade. This also represents the top, and helps me keep things oriented right as I go through the whole process.
This is also where you want to ensure your blade is straight. Getting it straight from the start has a lot to do with careful milling or drilling, and then scraping out the slot carefully. You can make some minor adjustments to the straightness here by scraping the inside of the slot as needed. If it is too far off, best start again. And you don't want to open up the front too much. I do leave a little slop in the front so that some epoxy will fill that slight void.
Next I cut out my spacer materials. In this case I am using copper and ebony. I use a thin piece of ebony and ensure it is square and true in all proportions, especially thickness. For the copper I just cut out a piece of copper pipe, heat it and hammer it flat (gently), and then sand them all flat and true.
I slot the spacers, ensuring my offset is right for each, and then I size them all to the front handle section. I then fit them all up together with the ferrule and insert the tang to make sure all is fitting together and is still straight. Then it's time to glue up the spacer.
With Ebony and Ironwood you know there is a lot of oil in the wood, which can interfere with a good epoxy bond. I use acetone or better, denatured alcohol to remove as much oil as I can. I do this for the faces that will bond to the copper, and also the slot.
I glue the spacer together, then slip the tang through the ferrule and the spacer. This ensures that once the epoxy has hardened it will all fit together.
Note: I have not glued the spacer to the handle ferrule yet. The space will be used as a template to drill first the ferrule rod holes, and then the same for the handle body.
Next I mark out and drill the rod holes in the spacer. I use brass rods, which will give more strength to the epoxy bond for all of the pieces.
Again, nothing scientific about this. I drill them straight, don't get too close to the tang slot, and definitely don't get too close to the handle outside. You don't want to see brass rods appear while shaping your handle...
Get these holes straight! You can make them 'slightly' oversized to allow for epoxy to fill the gap.
Now it's time to drill the rod holes in the ferrule. Set your depth at this point, you don't want to overshoot and come out the front!
If your spacer and ferrule are the same size it's relatively easy to get things lined up for the holes. * Make sure your spacer orientation fits the ferrule * The offset slot can mess you up here, as well as top / bottom orientation.
Once you drill one hole, put the rod in. Then drill the second. This will ensure they are space right and the pieces will come together with a good fit.
Fit them all together when done to ensure it's right.
Now do the handle body the same way, again ensuring the spacer orientation is right. Remember to flip the spacer for this.
If you got it all right, it should all slide together and fit well.
Time to glue it all together. I score the copper, the rods, and the handle ends, but stay away from what will be the handle edges with it. I believe this helps the epoxy get a better bond. You can see my cross-hatch in the pic.
I do this both with a heavy grit sand paper, and also use an exacto blade to score it further.
Clean all mating surfaces again with acetone or denatured alcohol.
I use the same Zpoxy 30 minute working time for this part. It gives me enough time to ensure everything is fitting together well.
After I spread the glue on the surfaces I try to work it into the cross-hatch patterns in the surfaces to ensure a good bond. I am also careful to not fill the tang slot with gobs of epoxy.
I use a screw clamp to gently squeeze it all together, but am very careful not to squeeze out all the epoxy from the joint. Leave a little slack so you still have some glue in the joints, but not so much that it shows a huge gap. It's a fine line for sure.
I then remove the clamp and just put about 10 rubber bands around the handle lengthwise to hold it firmly together until the epoxy sets.
I set the blade into the slot fully during this glue-up, pulling it out several times and cleaning the epoxy off of it until it will slide in and out more or less freely.
I keep checking my epoxy on my mixing tablet so that before it is fully set I remove the tang. You don't want it getting stuck in there at this point. If the epoxy is all but fully set you shouldn't see any creep in the joints and just let it cure now.
After it has set for about 24 hours you can start shaping. I'm not going to show that work.
Once I have the handle shaped I take it out back and hand sand to my own satisfaction, then buff.
I do some sanding on the surface plate as well, only on the angled portion of my ferrule.
My grit for handle finishing usually goes 320, 400, 1200, buff (white compound). Done.
Once your blade is completely done you can glue it all up.
The one thing I do before final glue up is to fill the tang slot with denatured alcohol and let it set for a few minutes, then dump. I might do this 4 or 5 times to ensure no oils remain and I get a good bond between handle and blade. I also score the blade tang with 100 or so grit sandpaper and ensure it is cleaned up very well.
I then use acraglass to bond it all together.
This is the end result. I hope this is helpful to someone.
