Scrapper 5 LE gets wood

RokJok

RokJok

Gold Member
Joined
Oct 6, 2000
Messages
4,270
I really liked PeterPHWS's removal of the spine bump on his S5 LE (thank you, sir), so I did the same to mine. Mine was a user from the git-go, so the removal is no great loss. I left the shoulders where I ground off the hump very sharp for striking sparks from firesteels. I realized that with the bump gone, making a cover for the S5 would be a lot easier.... so I made one up in oak wood and brass rod that will offer more protection than the cardboard cover it came with.

I did the hokey rare-earth magnet trick to keep the cover from falling off. Just below the piece of oak with the round magnets in the picture is the scrap of walnut veneer I glued in to retain the magnets and keep them from scratching the blade upon insertion-withdrawal.
S5LE_oak_1_parts.jpg


Here is the interior of the two sides of the cover sealed with a coat of Daly's Benite wood conditioner. Note that the edges of the two pieces that will eventually get glue applied to them are still raw wood.
S5LE_oak_2_sealed_interiors.jpg


Here is the S5 LE laid inside the half with the walnut veneer covered magnets to show the position of the knife after everything is assembled.
S5LE_oak_3_knife_interior.jpg


Here I am epoxying the 1/8" diameter brass rod sections in place. They are to keep the two pieces of oak in place during glue-up (no sliding around with the glue acting as lube between the pieces). They will also serve as an edge guard should the edge ever wear through the inside part of the glue joint. The shine is from the cellophane tape I used to keep from epoxying the cover to the table. ;)
S5LE_oak_4_brass_pins.jpg


The glue-up in the clamps.
S5LE_oak_5_glueup.jpg


The final cover -- right side. It has a couple coats of wipe-on polyurethane over Benite for finish.
S5LE_oak_6_final_right.jpg


The final cover -- left side.
S5LE_oak_7_final_left.jpg


The final cover -- the open end to make clean-out easy.
S5LE_oak_8_open_end.jpg


Finally, a shot showing where I scratched the side of the blade at the tip by angling the blade too shallow into the belt on my grinder while thinning out the edge. The knife cuts a lot better now after the edge doctoring.
S5LE_oak_9.jpg
 
Last edited:
Awesome job, I love it.


1 question though........how do you attach the tec-loc ????? :)
 
How did you create the raised sides/channel in the oak? They weren't applied right? Its two solid halves of oak? Thats pretty cool dude. Thanks for sharing.
 
Wow, Thats a nice Shirasaya for sure! Looks great:thumbup:




BTW- never heard that word untill stabber posted, but I assume it's a type of wooden sheath
 
adrock1978 said:
How did you create the raised sides/channel in the oak? They weren't applied right? Its two solid halves of oak? Thats pretty cool dude. Thanks for sharing.
Click to expand...


My guess is he milled it out with a dado blade on his table saw.

Nice sheath Greg, now if you just inlaid a sharpening stone on one side edge and a striker on the other, maybe a integral whistle, a inset a mirror.................................................... sorry, I was having flashbacks of the multi gadget you used to have hanging on your neck!!! :eek:



:D
 
Thank you all for the kind words.

David Brown said:
how do you attach the tec-loc?????
Click to expand...
Screws into or, more sturdily, cap screws through the edges where it's glued together should do it. But as a belt sheath it's never going to be able to compete with the pants all you fine kydex and moo-dex benders make. This one is a cover for transporting the knife moreso than a wooden belt sheath. That said, I have seen nicely made wooden sheaths, especially for some of the Nordic style knives and from some of the bowie makers. Jay Hendrickson's silver wire inlay fiddleback maple sheaths comes to mind or the work of Mike Rader.

adrock1978 said:
How did you create the raised sides/channel in the oak? They weren't applied right? Its two solid halves of oak?
Click to expand...
Correct -- it is two solid halves of a single piece of wood.

I resawed a block of oak in half, then took successive passes dado'ing into each half on a router table. I used a 1/2" wide router bit set just a hair over 3/32" deep (x2 equals the 3/16" thickness of the S5 blade). I kept moving the cut sideways until the dado groove was as wide as the blade is high plus a smidge (very technical term :D ). This created a very shallow U-shaped block of wood from each half of the original block of oak.

I then aligned and clamped the two U-shaped pieces together to drill the holes for the 1/8" diameter brass rod that would keep them aligned while gluing. Epoxied the rods into one of the pieces. Used the rods to keep the two pieces in register while I bandsawed the mouth for the handle cutout into them. Then apply glue to the mating edges of each U-shaped piece, dab a little epoxy into the brass rod holes in the un-rodded piece, and clamp. Shaped on router table with round-over bit to radius the outside corners and apply finish.

Extra credit to Stabber for using the word "shirasaya" correctly, or any other word from the Japanese lexicon for that matter. :thumbup:

Tim, I'd have used the a dado set on the table saw if I could dig the saw out from all of the cra.... I mean valuable items... yeah, that's it, valuable items... that are stacked on top of it. ;) :D Actually, inlaying a sharpening stone would be pretty easy and handy too. Thanks for the idea. It's so much more useful than the inlaid perfling I was thinking of adding for eye-candy.
 
That is a very nice holding block sheath...given the S5LE's versatility on food prep that would be a great way to keep the knife handy but safe in the kitchen....infact doing a two or three knife holding block for the really good food prep users might be a cracking idea...it would save a lot of money on buying comparable quality kitchen knives....and give you some better use out of your Infi...:thumbup:

I have a thinned down Satin mirror finish and convexed Skinny Ash which I often use in the kitchen for meat and bread cutting....combine that with the S5LE as a pairing knife and vegetable knife and you have nearly all bases covered...I bet the new Bushwacker Mistress would make a great carving knife as well....Hmmm....could be onto a winning idea there Rok Jok:thumbup::cool:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top