What's going on in your shop? Show us whats going on, and talk a bit about your work!

A Barlow in AEB-L with aluminum bronze bushing and rams horn I am working on.

Getting set up to silver solder on the stainless bolsters to the stainless liners
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Line it up.
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Solder Job
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It worked
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contour the bolsters
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Lunch
1/3lb chili burger with everything
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Test fit
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Cut, thin, align, glue Rams horn
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Sand, polish and get ready to install 1/16" pin and inlet the shield and pin it.

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This is my self made knife making vice.
She aint pretty but she can work.
I now cut three sides of the end of the squire tube and bend the remaining side 90degrees.
I can now use that end to work on the butt side of a handle.
Good thing I left the squire tube long then I first made it.

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Hengelo_77 said:
I'm liking this difou wood more and more.
I wonder why it isn't used more.

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I've never heard of it. Is it Osage Orange? Never mind. Just looked it up. Grows West Africa, from Senegal to Gabon. Looks really nice I'll have to do some more research on it. Great looking knife, by the way.

Update:The wood is yellow brown and has clearly demarcated sapwood. The grain is straight or interlocked and the texture is medium. The colour darkens with air and becomes brown. Difou is similar to Iroko. The blunting effect is fairly high; peeling is reported to be bad and slicing is reported to be good. Requires power. Nailing is good but pre-boring is necessary. Gluing is correct. Difou dries normal to slowly. Difou is very durable to fungi and is durable to dry wood borers; sapwood demarcated (risk limited to sapwood). This species naturally covers the biological hazard class 4 for building. Difou can be used for several applications: • interior: e.g. high class furniture, stairs, sliced veneer, paneling, sculpture, flooring, joinery, industrial or heavy flooring • exterior: e.g. sleepers, bridges, ship building, panelling, joinery, heavy carpentry, stakes, posts, vehicle or container flooring References • CIRAD Forestry Department

Sounds a lot like Osage Orange.
 
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ok ... I have been speaking about my forthcoming contributions here for a while ... so here is my first. Absolutely no way as drop-dead beautiful as many, many others (most recently the drop-dead incredible contributions from Caterwhopkins absolutely incredible Gyuto and Petty). This is the first of several designs that I actually started 18 years ago. I do a LOT of cooking ... and favor using a knife to "scoop" what I have cut into some container. Often it is relatively small pieces that are more amenable to a "paring" knife than a chef's knife - but paring knives are not very "scooping" friendly. Hence the following: O1 steel purchased and profiled 18 years ago, sat (for various reasons - like life demands) until now. stock thickness about 0.07". HT to about 62 rockwell (thank you JT!!). Handle that not-so-well-stabilized spalted maple dyed green (with Corby bolts). Only taken to about 0.02" bte (I know - should be thinner).... :
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In a lot of ways, this is still very much a "learning vehicle" for me. First time I have used stabilized wood (this is one of the low-weight examples I have described in other threads - and yes, it did have some voids I will need to fill with CA...), first time I have tried pre-drilling the handles and shaping the fronts ahead of attaching to the tang to minimize risk of damaging the blade finish (nice approach!), and also if you look closely (second picture), there is very clearly some lack of blade flatness (second picture), where if one were so inclined, hand sanding would be appropriate (this is old steel purchased from a local steel mill 18 years ago - I suspect the original finish quality was really all that good :-(. The last image is to make a point: in making, all grind lines were vertical (top to bottom), but even after one use, and cleaning with a "standard" green pad, where I would wipe lengthwise while cleaning, obvious lengthwise scratch patterns were left. so .. and here is the question - if after only one single use and cleaning for a kitchen "user", these scratch patterns are created - WHY would we worry about 400, 600, 800 grit marks on an as-produced kitchen user?????? Looks pretty out the door - but to what end???
 
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Cushing H. said:
if after only one single use and cleaning for a kitchen "user", these scratch patterns are created - WHY would we worry about 400, 600, 800 grit marks on an as-produced kitchen user??????
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That's what you are going to get if you are using those scouring pads. Use a cloth to avoid it. I find food doesn't really stick to my knives in a way that needs serious scrubbing, even at 240 grit.
Also those pads will destroy your cast iron seasoning and non-stick coatings

Shorter but taller kitchen knives are nice, my santoku is getting used less and less after making my taller prep knife
 
i would never use a scouring pad on a knife. run it under the faucet, and wipe dry with a cloth. if you do not let the vegetable juices/ food dry on the blade, you should never have to scrub it. most kitchen knives i have seen have the satin finish running lengthwise toward the tip. that will help hide any wear from a wiping action.
 
Lol. Tell me please if, in the entire life of a knife, you can assure that it never sees a green pad. I submit that if you expect it will not (for a working kitchen knife), your expectations will be dashed. Use conditions man, you can think about them, and react to them, but you can NOT define them (someone else will)...
 
Alex Topfer said:
That's what you are going to get if you are using those scouring pads. Use a cloth to avoid it. I find food doesn't really stick to my knives in a way that needs serious scrubbing, even at 240 grit.
Also those pads will destroy your cast iron seasoning and non-stick coatings

Shorter but taller kitchen knives are nice, my santoku is getting used less and less after making my taller prep knife
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Alex, i have been cooking on cast iron for 40 years, i can assure you that green scrubbies do not destroy the seasoning on cast iron. Run under hot water to soften any grime, light wipe with green scrubbie to get rid of chunks. Rinse. Wipe. Perhaps heat to get rid of any moisture, then MAYBE a light wipe with oil. I can show you the multiple examples if you want ... all decades old and going strong. I repeat, you are not going to be able to define the way your users use your product (this is both a personal and professional statement), the best you can do, like it or not, is REACT to the way they will use the product.
 
Alex Topfer said:
Is there any particular reason for metal saya pins? Aren't they traditionally bamboo?
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You are correct, many traditional pins are wood, or even horn....most traditional handles are a type of magnolia wood (ho wood), and the sayas for kitchen knives are usually cheap poplar or something similar...that's not what most folks want when they commission me to make a knife for them.
 
Bob Ohlemann said:
These knives have seen plenty of use over several years. Some have a slight patina but all look quite nice still. In general people will treat an item according to the value they place upon it.
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many of these knives are over 35 years old. most are over 20 years old (just a few newer, and im not even showing the really newer ones - like within 5 years). Almost all are not stainless.
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they have been through me as a single person who thought he could keep care of everything in immaculate condition. they have seen a family raised, with early mornings, late nights, cooking, then cleaning the kitchen after working an entire day, putting the kids to bed, then finally cleaning up when I could barely keep my eyes open, much less making sure I only reached for a clean, lintless cloth, when the closest thing within reach with soap on it was a green scrubby. then rinse and repeat - for 35 years. You can care about something, yet not always be able to meet even your own expectations.

My point is that you can state the "ideal" way to take care of a knife, but for you, and especially for your recipients of your product (whether it be customer, family, or friend), you can not define the conditions, and time and attention, that life allows you, or them, to pay to keeping those knives in pristine condition. Not going to happen, unless that person has WAY too much free time to do nothing but take care of a knife - in which case they are more than welcome to their lonely life. so ... how much is it worth to you making that knife pristine and "perfect" out the door, if in a week or a couple months it is going to pick up scratches or discolorations that it took you, as a maker, loads of effort to eliminate??????

Please keep in mind that this is coming from a knife-nerd of 40 years and running strong....
 
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Cushing H. said:
week or a couple months it is going to pick up scratches or discolorations that it took you, as a maker, loads of effort to eliminate??????
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(i don't really sell many knives, i do this as a hobby) if someone wants to buy a mirror polished knife and then take an abrasive to it then that's their choice. As i said, that's what you get if you use those pads on a knife.
if you want something people can't break, you can make something like that. i'm not going to, there's no art in it.
 
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