Knife #2 - WIP and lessons learned

N

nailcreek

Joined
Sep 21, 2003
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I've been working on another knife and have it to the point of staining the handle. It's #2 and this one's been an interesting build as well.

I used another knife "kit" blade and bolster. The handle material is mahogany, which is softer than I thought. The color of the unstained scales is different too, which surprised me as they were cut from the same board and side-to-side.

Anyway ... lessons learned so far?

1. You can't drill through a bolster and through a hardened blade without breaking the drill bit. You break the drill bit and create a learning opportunity for breaking out steel drillbit parts and soldering a brass rod piece into the remaining hole.
2. Heating the knife in the oven on "warm" does help set up the epoxy when you're setting scales and pins.
3. A buffing wheel will remove wood faster than metal.

The next step is final finishing of the handle and polishing the brass and steel. I've thought of using superglue as a handle finish, but I'm not sure about it's durability. If I chicken out, I'll likely stick with polyurethane or tru-oil ...
 

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Nailcreek, it looks like you did a slam-bang good job on the handle and bolsters from what I can see in the pics! Isn't it kind of funny how some "hardwoods" are actually not as hard as people say? I found out the same thing about black walnut. Tru Oil makes for a pretty decent finish. What I did with my first knife was sealed the grain with Birchwood Casey's Gun Stock wax (2 coats) buffed with 0000 steel wool, then did 2 coats of Tru oil, buffing again with the wool between coats. If you want to see a pic of it, I made a post a couple of days ago titled "Kinda stuck here". You are doing great and keep up the good work! -Matt-
 
Thanks for the kind comments ... while my work will likely never approach that of the makers here who post, I'm having a lot fun.

I'm trying pretty hard to get a good, tight fit between bolster and blade and bolster and handle. Working with these Japanese knife kit blades does made things a lot easier though - they're very nicely finished, straight and plane.

At some point, I'll try my hand at a stock removal blade, but for now ... being an "assembler" is fun and I'm not finding this part of it all that hard or beyond my very limited capabilities.:o
 
Gotta love those 'learning opportunities.' I just wish there weren't so darned many popping up all the time!:)
The handle looks very good. Nice wood, good shape:thumbup:
 
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