- Joined
- Mar 11, 2011
- Messages
- 26,011
Hopefully I'm posting this in the right place.
Got this cleaver a few weeks ago, decided to mod it.
The Marbles Camp Cleaver the day I got it:
Fresh out of the stripper. Only took about an hour and a half with Citrustrip. Looks like hell at this point:
After some sanding on the handle and blade. If you noticed in the first photo, there's some edges where the flats on the side transition to the top and bottom. You know that's going to create some hot spots, so, I filed and sanded those out. Also, this doesn't have scales. It's one piece of pine, with a slit cut into it. The blade goes back just behind the 3rd pin. I made a tube of sandpaper, and sanded the edges off the slit. They felt like they pinched before, but not after sanding:
I never did like the handle shape. A pointed handle on a rounded blade made no sense to me, so, I cut the end off, and contoured it. I also made the spot where the forefinger goes on the handle go a little deeper, and more forward, to accomodate my hand size a little better, but also to get a better grip in general. Cleaned the lanyard tube out:
Ground on the blade a bit, so I could choke up on it more. I personally think it looked good stock, as the flow of the handle and blade worked good together, but, this is more functional. On the other hand, it does sort of go with the contour of the forefinger "groove" I made. Still contouring the handle more, and also got the paint out of the fullers:
Applied stripper yet again to the spots I couldn't get sanded off. Not sure what the deal is, but I still couldn't get some of it off. I said the hell with it, gonna be a user anyways. So I put a wood conditioner on it, and stained it a Red Mahogany color. And finally, sealed it with 3 coats of a clear satin polyurethane:
Tried a mustard, and apple vinegar patina, but didn't care for the results, and sanded it off. I ended up doing a vinegar splatter patina. Good enough for now at least:
Finally, added a leather lanyard and beads:
Regular grip:
You can see the "notch" I ground to be able to choke up:
Choked up grip:
Random shots:
Darkened in the "Marbles" logo with a black sharpie. Didn't hide it completely, but muted it a bit. You can compare it with the first photo above. I definitely think a leather sheath would look better with it now:
Another fun project. Really enjoyed modding this one.
Got this cleaver a few weeks ago, decided to mod it.
The Marbles Camp Cleaver the day I got it:
Fresh out of the stripper. Only took about an hour and a half with Citrustrip. Looks like hell at this point:
After some sanding on the handle and blade. If you noticed in the first photo, there's some edges where the flats on the side transition to the top and bottom. You know that's going to create some hot spots, so, I filed and sanded those out. Also, this doesn't have scales. It's one piece of pine, with a slit cut into it. The blade goes back just behind the 3rd pin. I made a tube of sandpaper, and sanded the edges off the slit. They felt like they pinched before, but not after sanding:
I never did like the handle shape. A pointed handle on a rounded blade made no sense to me, so, I cut the end off, and contoured it. I also made the spot where the forefinger goes on the handle go a little deeper, and more forward, to accomodate my hand size a little better, but also to get a better grip in general. Cleaned the lanyard tube out:
Ground on the blade a bit, so I could choke up on it more. I personally think it looked good stock, as the flow of the handle and blade worked good together, but, this is more functional. On the other hand, it does sort of go with the contour of the forefinger "groove" I made. Still contouring the handle more, and also got the paint out of the fullers:
Applied stripper yet again to the spots I couldn't get sanded off. Not sure what the deal is, but I still couldn't get some of it off. I said the hell with it, gonna be a user anyways. So I put a wood conditioner on it, and stained it a Red Mahogany color. And finally, sealed it with 3 coats of a clear satin polyurethane:
Tried a mustard, and apple vinegar patina, but didn't care for the results, and sanded it off. I ended up doing a vinegar splatter patina. Good enough for now at least:
Finally, added a leather lanyard and beads:
Regular grip:
You can see the "notch" I ground to be able to choke up:
Choked up grip:
Random shots:
Darkened in the "Marbles" logo with a black sharpie. Didn't hide it completely, but muted it a bit. You can compare it with the first photo above. I definitely think a leather sheath would look better with it now:
Another fun project. Really enjoyed modding this one.
