I have a checkering handle and a couple 16LPI cutters for it sitting in my garage for about two years now with visions of doing some checkering on knife handles and bolsters. So I was working on a beater knife this weekend and decided maybe I wanna checker the front third of the scales. I (luckily) got out a piece of scrap, shape it to the dimms of the handle contour more or less, and get to it. BTW checkering G11 takes a while, you have to stop constantly to clean the packed dust out of the cutter or it slips. I get a decent pattern for the first time, a bit too deep but whatever. 16LPI definately seemed too coarse and sharp. What LPI do you guys use, I do not wanna get anything too fine and at the same time not get something fine enough? Maybe 22? Oh and the knife was a fairly large handled piece with a 5" blade. I guess the smaller the piece you are checkering the finer you want the LPI to be. I could see using 24LPI on a slipjoint or other small knife.
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those of you that checker your handles...
- Thread starter gixxer
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- Feb 28, 2006
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Aaaahhhhhhuuuhhhhhuuuuummmmmm.........
- Joined
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I haven't tried checkering G11 so I can't help you there but for wooden scales the 16 LPI seems to work well. Much finer seems to cause problems and is for those more adept that I. A lot of it is simply personal choice and the look that you are after.
Gary
Gary
Do you hit it with some 600 to knock the points down a hair? I need to work on my depth, I caught myself still scraping after the flat disappeared and the point showed up.
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- Feb 28, 2006
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No wonder I haven't made much progress with my knives. I guess I should set my standards higher.
Why not? We could see what you're explaining.
- Joined
- Feb 21, 2001
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A checkering file is fairly wide and might be difficult to get in the radius of the finger grooves. I would also get a single cut 60 checkering file from brownells.com to get into the tight spots. Ensure you get the coarsest one they have, I find the fine one too fine.
Chris
Chris