Sooooo, I'm what you call a really slow knife maker. I think, then I ponder, and eventually I finally move. I have a problem as well with knowing how I want something to look and my skills not being there yet, too. This has equalled more knives in the unfinished state, broken, or in the shame bucket than I have completed.
But-I have been doing much better lately (or so I thought). I have 3 full tang bird and trout knives I made and only 1 got ruined after a heat treating incident. But shoot-I'll take 3 out of 4 at this stage. I was also working on 4 hidden tang hunters. Left one of them behind when the guard fit was painfully bad. Got the other 3 handle blocks pinned and epoxied up and shaped the guards. Again, I thought things were going swimmingly. I was grinding the handles today when disaster struck-the ironwood went down first....I found the epoxy.... I grumbled and moved on, then the Cocobolo one went down the same way.
I decided to beat the handles off with a hammer as I actually have a deadline for these to be done and that's next weekend. I cut some more wood and thought I'd at least made it through with the flame maple one. Then I looked closer and took some sand paper to it. 3 for 3....
I cut some more wood and went to working on getting them slotted for the now slightly narrower tangs (trying to help myself out for round 2). There were a few times I thought I was going to throw something at the wall-I was having fits trying to get that last tiny gap gone between wood and guard... But, somehow I managed to get all three worked out and they're now pinned and epoxied.
I'd say miracles happen, but the jury's still out on these... The lousy thing is, I've been having to travel a lot recently for work and only have my weekends to get much done. At least I got them glued up tonight. Now they can set up and I can go to handle shaping like a madman (slow, methodical, and enjoying the journey) late tomorrow. Aren't hobbies supposed to be fun...?
Jeremy
But-I have been doing much better lately (or so I thought). I have 3 full tang bird and trout knives I made and only 1 got ruined after a heat treating incident. But shoot-I'll take 3 out of 4 at this stage. I was also working on 4 hidden tang hunters. Left one of them behind when the guard fit was painfully bad. Got the other 3 handle blocks pinned and epoxied up and shaped the guards. Again, I thought things were going swimmingly. I was grinding the handles today when disaster struck-the ironwood went down first....I found the epoxy.... I grumbled and moved on, then the Cocobolo one went down the same way.
I decided to beat the handles off with a hammer as I actually have a deadline for these to be done and that's next weekend. I cut some more wood and thought I'd at least made it through with the flame maple one. Then I looked closer and took some sand paper to it. 3 for 3....
I cut some more wood and went to working on getting them slotted for the now slightly narrower tangs (trying to help myself out for round 2). There were a few times I thought I was going to throw something at the wall-I was having fits trying to get that last tiny gap gone between wood and guard... But, somehow I managed to get all three worked out and they're now pinned and epoxied.
I'd say miracles happen, but the jury's still out on these... The lousy thing is, I've been having to travel a lot recently for work and only have my weekends to get much done. At least I got them glued up tonight. Now they can set up and I can go to handle shaping like a madman (slow, methodical, and enjoying the journey) late tomorrow. Aren't hobbies supposed to be fun...?
Jeremy
. 