Opinel

[KHarper]

EDIT: I just realized the the shoulder of wood where it meets the locking ring is there for a reason. It holds the edge of the virobloc from sliding down towards the hand if the blade tries to close. Since I carved that down and rounded it off and made it nice and pretty and flush, the tiny little edge remaining doesn't do anything. The metal just bends and slides onto the face of the wood. Normally all the force would transmit into that shoulder. I KNEW that too; I splinted my No.6 a but trying to force the blade against the lock.
The lock should still keep the blade from closing by accident, but the lockup isn't quite as solid as it was before. Nothing holding it now but the spring of the metal. Next time I will pay attention to that.

Just reading all these posts, I'll finish getting that pivot out tomorrow, and it'll be stained shortly after. I'm nearly done with the handle sanding already. I did make a bit of a flat around where the locking ring goes when filing the pin head. The ring still fits well enough. I wonder if I could squeeze it a bit before I put the ring on to make it a bit tighter if needed?

As far as scratching wood with 80 grit goes, would sanding up to 220 after using 80 for the harder work remove those scratches? Wondering mainly because of a recurve I'm refinishing. Most of the work has been with 100 grit, and I plan to smooth everything out now up to 220 to prep for staining and tru oil finish.

You can use 80 for removing bulk material, but you really don't need to go that heavy. It'll save time, but you can use 120 and it'll still remove a lot of material. Whatever you use, any scratches can be sanded out with finer paper, but you're better off going in stages - 80, 100, 120, 180, 220. Only use the heavier grits for rought shaping, get the shape you want with the 120 or 180, then smooth it with the 200/220. It will be hard to smooth the heavy scratches from 80 with 220. All I had was some 180 grit and some like 1000 automotive stuff. The 180 left heavy enough scratches that I had to work at it to smooth it with such fine paper. 220 is not 1000 grit, but 80 grit is REALLY coarse stuff. I mean it's like snd from the bottom in general use; only 60 grit below that that I've encountered.
If you are worried about the stain "taking" the wood, you can stain it after the 180 then smooth the stained surface. I am not an expert stainer but I think it would work fine if you just sanded it.

If you are interested, however, I just tried my olive oil seasoning process, and it works perfectly. Lightly coat the whole handle (I removed all the metal, but it could probably be done assembled as well) with virgin olive oil. I baked mine at 325 because I wasn't sure what would happen, and I can always go hotter/darker next time if I want to. It came out a nice smooth, soft leather brown, totally uniform, and the water beads off it like rainex. Totally natural, cheap, effective. I only baked it for 15 minutes or so, until I smelled hot wood.

And yes, you can adjust the collar by squeezing it, quite easily. But BEWARE! The Virobloc will then be loose! And that is hard to adjust, being springy and prone to go out of round. Not impossible, but harder. I am not sure if the small bit of sanding I did between the blade pivot points removed more material than I thought, or the baking process dried and shrunk the wood more than I realized, but when I reassmbled the knife the blade was quite loose in the handle. I would be wary of removing any material around where the blade interfaces with the handle, if you can avoid it. I tried to squeeze it tight with the vise while still assembled and almost succeeded, but I still wasn't happy. So I took it apart again (luckily it's a breeze now that I've had it apart before!) and squeezed the collar smaller and pushed it onto the handle again. The gap was now too narrow to fit the blade, so I stuck the point of a flathead screwdriver in the gap and twisted it to pry it open until it was just barely wide enough to fit the blade, and re-assembled the blade. I was glad because now it was just as snug as I could make it. But then I put the locking ring back on and realized it was now far to large for the collar, loosely rattling around. It would have worked as long as it was kept locked when open or closed, but it annoyed be. So I squeezed that smaller as well, and it fits snugly again (beware squeezing in one direction only, or you might make an oval out of it! And I don't know if that can be fixed at all, honestly).
Now the blade again fits nice and snug and so does the lock and collar...I just fear that when the moisture re-aborbs it will become VERY tight. If that happens I'll just use the screwdriver to loosen the collar again. I don't think I'll even need to take the virobloc off again. If I do it will be because it's now too difficult to turn.

 

[pinnah]

After much experimentation, I use 80 grit.

200 grit definitely starts to close up the grain and greatly reduces the amount it takes stain. Stain will raise the grain somewhat any how.

I rely on multiple coats of Tung Oil Finish (has poly in it) to fill in the scratches and also lightly sanding with very fine sand paper between later coats. Mine come out smooth as glass.

I came upon this approach after consulting a few local woodworkers I trust and showing them early attempts and asking them how to get better penetration. Note: I was advised simply that beech doesn’t take stain well.

I’ll try to post pictures later.

 

[pinnah]

Here are some pictures of some Opinels refinished using the approach I described above.
Opinel by Pinnah, on Flickr

Untitled by Pinnah, on Flickr

Here is a link to a photo stream with step by step instructions in the notes.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/pinnah/albums/72157678660002710

 

[Henry Beige]

View attachment 1270351

Did you drop the point first and then reshape the handle, or the other way around? When I reshaped the handle on one of my No.6s, the trailing point of the closed blade stood proud, and I had to drop the point to keep it from sticking out. I was planning to do that anyway, but it is something to think about if you don’t want to have the mod forced on you.

Sanding is the most obvious way to reshape the handle, but the beechwood handle of the Opinel is also pretty easy to whittle.

 

[KHarper]

After much experimentation, I use 80 grit.

200 grit definitely starts to close up the grain and greatly reduces the amount it takes stain. Stain will raise the grain somewhat any how.

I rely on multiple coats of Tung Oil Finish (has poly in it) to fill in the scratches and also lightly sanding with very fine sand paper between later coats. Mine come out smooth as glass.

I came upon this approach after consulting a few local woodworkers I trust and showing them early attempts and asking them how to get better penetration. Note: I was advised simply that beech doesn’t take stain well.

I’ll try to post pictures later.

Ah, I understand. My apologies. I assumed it was just a typo, since it's so different from what I've usually heard. 80 grit finish wouldn't be very good, but 80 grit followed by finer grits makes perfect sense. I am sure you know more than I do about it.

 

[Henry Beige]

80 grit is fine by me. When I first started molesting my Opinels, I picked up a range of grits, the coarsest being 80 grit emery cloth. (I don’t know if that detail makes any difference.) once I got done shaping, I realized I didn’t need or want anything finer. I just wax or oil the handles rather than applying any knd of glossy finish.

On some knives, the 80 grit finish is finer than the original finish.

 

[palmerdl]

Did you drop the point first and then reshape the handle, or the other way around? When I reshaped the handle on one of my No.6s, the trailing point of the closed blade stood proud, and I had to drop the point to keep it from sticking out. I was planning to do that anyway, but it is something to think about if you don’t want to have the mod forced on you.

If you were referring to my post... I shaped the handle first, but I was aware of where the original point was while shaping. I also did the shaping mostly on the 1 x 42 belt sander. Some hand sanding to 'fine tune' the shape. It doesn't really show in the photo, but I put a bit of a flat on the side to slim it and keep it from rolling ( as much ) when laid on it's side.

 

[KHarper]

I noticed that. A good idea. I didn't understand what it was for until I tried to set mine down on a sloping surface. I thought "next time I should make the sides flat" and I remembered the photo you posted and understood the purpose.