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Rescaled UKPK

phillipsted

phillipsted

Joined
Oct 4, 2010
Messages
1,315
Here is the newest of my growing UKPK/Urban wood-scale collection. This is a used UKPK that I purchased from one of the Forums. The handle material is ancient Kauri from New Zealand. When I first encountered this wood through Mark at Burl Source, I had to go look it up - because it is an extinct species. This wood has been carbon dated to over 40,000 years old - the Paleolithic or late Stone Age. Evidently, these large trees fell into swamps and bogs and were covered before rot took hold. These trees were monsters - on par with the Sequoia and Redwoods in size. When they are excavated today, they often find trunk sections the size of houses. Amazing stuff.

Anyway, these scales are stabilized. I carved them to shape and sanded down to 1200 grit. You can't really see it in the pictures, but Kauri has flecks of gold metallic shimmer in the wood, which gives it an almost 3D look. Gorgeous. The Kauri, even though it is relatively soft, is also fairly rigid, which makes it work well in these unlined UKPK knives. This version weighs several grams less than the original orange G10 knife.

Cheers!
TedP









 
Beautiful knife and scales! Really like the wood color and grain pattern. You did a great job on finishing the shoulders. Congratulations!
 
chuckd1217 said:
While i love the the knife and the scales, the kauri tree is not extinct.
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Roger that, Chuck! I mis-spoke - thanks for correcting me.

The folks selling this wood in New Zealand differentiate between "Ancient Kauri" (which is often up to 40,000 years old) and regularly-harvested modern kauri wood. This knife is made from Ancient Kauri.

TedP
 
phillipsted said:
Roger that, Chuck! I mis-spoke - thanks for correcting me.

The folks selling this wood in New Zealand differentiate between "Ancient Kauri" (which is often up to 40,000 years old) and regularly-harvested modern kauri wood. This knife is made from Ancient Kauri.

TedP
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Got it. That is amazing stuff though. Kauri trees are amazing too, not to mention that wood looks fantastic.
 
Here's a new one I just finished up. This is a Wharncliffe Urban with unstabilized bloodwood scales. I found the wood in a discard pile at my local specialty woods dealer. Bloodwood is very hard and dense, although less oily than rosewood and cocobolo - and gives the unlined Urban enough support to be stable. The final scales are a couple of grams lighter than the original G10. I cut the blanks to size with a coping saw, fitted them to the knife and finished/contoured them with files and sandpaper. For finishing, I used two coats of TruOil topped off by a buffing with Ren Wax.

TedP







 
Finished a new UKPK mod this weekend. This one is made from a piece of unstabilized canarywood that I pulled from a scrap pile at my local wood dealer. I love this wood - it is hard and dense, but not resinous. It has a very uniform grain so it works easily. But the best part from my perspective is the almost rainbow colors in the stripes. It's hard to see the detail in the photo, but there are bands of tan, brown, black, red, yellow, and other colors in the grain. Beautiful stuff - although in my experience, the wood becomes less vibrant over the years with aging and exposure...

I sliced the slabs to thickness, sanded them flat, then drilled, counterbored, and cut them out. I reassembled the knife, and shaped and contoured with files and hand sanding. They are finished with three thin coats of hand-rubbed Tru-Oil topped with a buffing with Ren Wax.

Cheers!
TedP









 
This is my latest Spyderco Slipit - a Wharncliffe Urban that was purchased used from one of the Forums. It had been lightly carried, but not sharpened by its original owner. I made a set of scales using a scrap piece of unstabilized rosewood from my local lumber dealer. Trimmed up the board then resawed some 0.125" scale slabs. I sanded them smooth by hand, drilled and counterbored the holes, cut out the profile using a coping saw, then shaped and contoured the scales using files and sandpaper. I finished them by sanding out to 1200 grit and applying 4 thin hand-rubbed coats of Tru-Oil. This was the first time I'd had trouble with Tru-Oil adhering to an oily dense wood like rosewood. After the first coat, I had to sand it back and reapply using a new bottle. The subsequent coats went on smoothly, but I ensured that I rubbed the Tru-Oil in very thin coats and worked the oil into the pores well. It still isn't perfect, but I learned a lesson that I tried on a piece of left-over scrap wood. Next time, I'm going to apply a couple of base coats of Tru-Oil sanding sealer to seal the grain before applying the Tru-Oil as a top coat.

Cheers!
TedP








 
Thanks, everyone for your nice comments. Yeah, they do feel really good in hand - warm and rounded.

mark jeneson said:
I really like the wharncliffe! Did you regrind that or was it manufactured that way?
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The short-lived Urban was released in two configurations - a forest green G10 with a leaf blade and an orange G10 with the wharncliffe blade. Both were plain edged only.

DavidZ said:
Awesome machining on the holes! Are there liners on this knife?
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Thanks! I assembled a couple of replaceable-pilot counterbores for the UKPK and Urban knives. Between them, they have just two different sizes of holes/counterbores to drill. And both the G10 UKPK and the G10 Urban were designed with no liners. They are exceedingly lightweight, especially when you replace the G10 with less dense wood. They make great gentleman's pocket knives.

TedP
 
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