My first knife "order"

I started working on the long slicer for my mother in law today. I got some new 320X sanding cloth from Supergrit, and I used that to remove the HT scale. As usual, this revealed sanding gouges that were not visible before HT, so it took a while to get them out.

Also, the friend came over to collect the chef's knife I made him. I told him it was free, but he insisted on paying for it. Kinda awkward for me. He said he still plans to give me an HT oven too. Amusingly, he asked whether I bought blade blanks and put handles on them. I showed him the bars of steel and explained I do everything except the HT. Not sure he really believed me, even though I showed him my current works in progress. (Sigh) I think I'll send him a WIP document about his knives.

- Greg
 
Today I took one side of the slicer up to 2000 grit. Lately my process has been to do both sides until I get to 320 grit, then finish one side, tape it up, then finish the other side. So the blade currently sits at 320 grit on the left side and 2000 grit on the right. I'm rushing this one just a bit because I want to give it to my mother-in-law for mothers day.

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Top tip of the day... never sand a piece of stabilized Koa on a belt that recently sanded blackwood.
 
I am sure she is going to love it.

Love it so much that all your hard work in the hand finish will be for nothing 15 minutes after she uses it.:rolleyes:
 
My biggest concern is that she or my father in law will just toss it in the dishwasher along with all the other utensils. But I won't let that thought keep me from doing my best.
 
Today I finished the hand sanding on the left side, and then etched my mark. When I removed the stencil I noticed that I also etched an unexpected scar into the blade as well, which can be seen in the upper right part of the picture. Kinda bums me out, but under the circumstances I'm not sure I'll worry about it.

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Continued working on the chef knife today. One side is now done with hand sanding at 2000 grit and the other side is at 320 grit. I'll work to get this blade through hand sanding today.

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Since the long slicer is to be my mother's day gift for my mother in law, I decided to prioritize the work to finish it. I have decided on Kirinite scales for it, but since it has a long thin tang, I needed to make the handle wider than the tang. Initially, I cut a piece of glow in the dark G10 to serve that purpose. Last night I glued those three pieces together. This morning I began working on it to fit the tang it. It quickly became apparent that approach would not work.

So this morning I took it apart and used my Dremel to route out a channel in the Kirinite for the tang. This is the result:

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And a follow on with the scales sanded a bit closer to final shape, and to show the final pattern.

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Finished up the mothers day gift today. Crappy pictures because I finished so late. Tomorrow I do the kitchen test. If it passes it gets boxed and sent.

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I asked that of my wife last night. She said, "It feels good in the hand." I have no doubt her mother will like it.
 
Last night I sharpened the chef knife and did final assembly. Today I did post assembly clean-up. Here are the final shots of the last two done.

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Thanks!. Both the LV and the blackwood gained depth and chatoyance when I rubbed on some butcher block conditioner. The blackwood fairly sparkled in the sunlight. I was very pleased with the result.
 
Today I pushed the 4.5 inch slicer/paring knife through the grits up to 1000, then etched my mark. I decided to use Lignum Vitae scales on this one, since I had a scale laying around that was big enough to cover both sides.

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I'll probably sharpen it tonight... or tomorrow morning, depending on my mood.
 
Well, after several weeks of preparing for a move (that is less likely to happen now), I decided to go ahead and finish the last knife from the CPM S35VN batch I started so long ago. The scales seen in the previous post were shaped and glued into place, but they split as I was peening the pins, so I quickly removed them, cut off the pins and cleaned off the glue. I started thinking about what material I have that could tolerate the internal pressure of peened pins, and I decided to use the blue jean mycarta I bought from Shade Tree Phenolics. Here's what I came up with.

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I'm sure you are noticing it's a non-standard handle design, thicker than it is wide. The idea came from the knives that are part of the Dansk flatware my wife and I chose as our wedding set. My shape isn't the same, but the concept of a knife that has a handle that is wider from side to side than from top to bottom is the same.

Okay, so not my best idea. But it actually does work well in the hand.
 
Well spent the last hour or so reading through this whole thread and I must say it was very informative and encouraging. Your knives turned out beautiful. Good work!!!

Jay
 
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