My first knife "order"

Do you have calipers? Even a $10.00 set will tell you how close you are to .010".
 
Yeah, good catch. I forgot about the calipers. They informed me that blade A is at 0.025, and blade B is at 0.011. Looks like blade A needs more time on the grinder. Glad I caught this before HT.
 
Okay, after regrinding and first pass hand sanding (to get rid of the gouges) blade A is now down to 0.007. I think I'll let the rest come off during hand sanding.
 
Hand sanding up to 400 grit is now completed on both blades. I'll prep them for shipment to Peters now, and start thinking seriously about the handle options after I meet with the recipient next week. Clicking on the images blow will take you to higher resolution images.



 
octagonal handles, with at least one with an olive wood handle (black or white throat)
How about striped Macasar ebony for the other?
 
At least one octagonal handle for sure. At the moment I'm prepping a piece of Amboyna burl, but will see if my friend would prefer Vasticola burl. I'll put an ivory front on the one I choose. He can pick what he wants on his.
 
I started working on one of the handles. Two of the building blocks (Amboyna burl body and ivory butt) are together now, though they need to be sized and shaped. The wood has been drilled through and is ready to receive as much of the tang as will not be covered by the throat. I'm still considering how to approach the throat. I want little or no visible gap where the blade enters (i.e. no place for bacteria to congregate).

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How does ivory hold up in a kitchen?
You can close the front with a (very) thin bolster. How about 1/2mm bronce?
 
Following one of Stacy's suggestions I decided to work on one handle using a basic black and white color scheme. I have some dyed stabilized pen blanks that seemed about right for a Wa handle, so I started with one of those. The blank started off measuring 6" x 1" x 1".

I knew I needed just under 5" clearance for the tang and I wanted to have about 1" of contrasting color at the throat, so I cut off 2" from the back side, then drilled slightly oversize holes in the front, and much larger holes in the rear. This allows me to have a closer fit in the front and a lot of clearance in the hollow core of the blank that will be filled with epoxy on final assembly. Then I reconstructed the blank inserting a piece of bone with black vulcanized paper spacers. The two sections of the blank and the bone spacer are also secured with two short pins going into the center of the thickest portion of the wood, to keep things secure in the event of a lateral hit on the handle.

I will probably end up shortening the handle by removing some of the 2" butt section, but that can wait until I have the contrasting throat section in place.

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Greg,
First. make sure your tang is slightly tapered, and the thickest part is at the front of the handle.
For the front of the handle, cut a block of wood/ivory to match the butt or stripe. It only needs to be 1/4" or so thick. CAREFULLY, saw/file the tang slot to make it an exact fit for the tang. One trick I use is to file the slot with the back side a little larger. This makes getting the front side ( the place that shows) as snug as possible.

Once the tang is fitted to the front piece, and the handle is pre-shaped as you wish, the handle can be assembled. Don't assemble it until you are ready to permanently install the handle.

Installing the handle:

On blades with tangs with enough thickness to allow the epoxy to be slowly poured in through the front piece slot, you can assemble the front piece onto the handle in advance. I usually put a thin coating of epoxy on both the front piece and the handle then put them on the tang. I hold them firmly in contact with each other as the epoxy gels, and once the work pot is gelled, but still a bit spongy, I slide off the assembled handle. Now, you can finish the handle. Once the handle is finished, tape it up to keep epoxy and scratches off it in assembly. TIP - mark the top side of the handle, as a taped up wa or oval handle can easily be put on upside down in assembly ( don't ask me how I know this :) ).
After the epoxy fully cures, you can completely finish the handle before assembly. When ready to install, fill the handle with epoxy and place on the tang as normal.The cork trick given below works well for assembling finished handles, too.

On blades with a thinner tang, pouring epoxy down the slot is nearly impossible, so the assemble is done along with handle glue-up.
Tape up the blade as you would for normal handle work. The only difference will be sticking a large cork on the point first. Champagne corks work great. I cut a 1/4" deep "+" in the outside end of the cork, and align it with the blade. More on that soon, now to installing the handle.
Place the front piece on the tang and wrap several layers of tape around the tang to make it stop where you want the handle front to be.
Place the handle on the tang and assure that the two fit together perfectly. Make any sanding adjustments needed now.
Remove the handle and fill it with epoxy. I like to use slow setting 24 hour epoxy, but the one hour type will work. 5 minute epoxy is far too fast.
Insert the handle, wiping off the run-out once it seats on the front piece. Wipe it off well and then take several large and heavy rubber bands, placing them across the butt on that end, and in the groves on the cork on the point. Put the bands on both the X and Y axes. Adjust the band tension from side to side as needed to make the handle sit firmly and straight against the front piece. Check that the handle lines up with the blade straight, too. Wipe off the excess again, checking for any gap. Place the knife in a vertical position and let the epoxy cure. I clamp a large spring clamp on the blade, which makes a tripod with the tip and allows the blade to sit vertically, but can be picked up for wiping or inspection. As the glue pot starts to gel, remove the rubber bands and the tape "stop" on the front of the handle. Wipe the handle joint off with acetone to double check that all is still aligned. If it is good, let it cure fully. If you are neat, and have done this a few times, you can leave the tape and bands in place and remove the rubber bands and tang tape after the epoxy is cured.
All that is needed now is to sand the front piece flush with the handle, and then finish sand the handle.
 
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I made a small piece out of 1095 today to sit in front of the handle. I hesitate to call it a bolster because it doesn't really serve that purpose. Its purpose, quite frankly, is to cover the gap between the tang and the handle. I'm considering silver soldering it into place so there is no visible gap at all. The gap between wood and metal will, of course, be filled with epoxy.

I also investigated what is different about left handed knives. Near as I can tell that means the secondary bevel is on the left side of the knife. So I'm planning on making one of these with a secondary bevel only on the left, and the other with secondary bevels on both sides.
 
Good thought Chris. I do have a piece of CPM S30V I could use. I'll start that process over again.
 
Today I roughed out the "bolsters" (or whatever they are) and slotted the ivory piece that will be in the front end of the one with the amboyna burl handle. I also attached the amboyna burl to the ivory butt cap, and that's curing now (hence not in this photo).

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The slot on the ivory is so close now that I'm not sure I need the "bolster". I'll look it over when it is time to assemble and see what makes the most sense.
 
Good looking blades so far.

If I remember correctly loctite has there marine epoxy which I think is pretty good. Its pretty slow setting. It also cures white so could help with the ivory one.

Only thing I can say is try and shape if possible the bolsters or be very careful after ward. Brass will build some heat up very quickly and can destroy the epoxy bond.
 
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