My First Rehandle!!

[ThEoRy]

Finally took a crack at rehandling my Tojiro ITK bread knife and I'm pretty happy with the results. Dave, Stefan, Marko and Mike etc... you guys need to charge more. Maybe it's just because it was my first one and I wanted to take special care not to ruin anything but I suspect you guys take the same precautions.


Anyway I didn't take pics all the way through but I can explain my process.

1: Drill off old scales.

2: Grind the tang clean and leave it rough.

3: Drill tang holes 1/4"

4: Trace scales on new wood then rough shape them on belt grinder.

5: Sand scales flat on diamond plate wrapped with sandpaper.

6: Rough cut liner material.

7: Prep liner material and scales by roughing up then cleaning with alcohol.

8: Prepare devcon 2 ton 30 min epoxy and spread on inside of scales then apply to liner material and clamp.

9: Wait

10: Shape, round and polish the front of the scale since this would be much harder once attached.

11: Prepare the tand and scale with roughing and cleaning with alcohol.

12: Prepare epoxy and apply to tang and scale then fit up the scale and clamp.

13: Wait.

14: Drill from the tang side through the scale completely.

15: Prepare other scale, epoxy, clamp.

16: Wait.

17: Drill back from the first scale through the second.

18: Cut mosaic bar into three appropriately sized pieces with a hack saw.

19: Rough up the pins, chamfer the edges and clean with alcohol.

20: Clean the inside of the scale/tang holes with alcohol until cotton swab comes out clean.

21: Prepare epoxy and line the holes with it and coat the pins as well then tap pins through the holes.

22: With a plier, twist pins until they are all facing straight up.

23: Wait.

24: Final rough shaping on belt sander until scales meet the tang smoothly, including grinding off excess pin material until flush.

25: Grind in rough angles all around edges on both sides.

26: Hand shaping and sanding from 100 grit up to 12,000 grit.

27: Mineral oil hand buffing.

28: Pics.......



29: Forget what wood it is..

There's some checks that appeared after sanding so I'm thinking ca glue then re sand a bit. But in any case, I'm happy with it for my first try. What do you guys think?

[don]

Nicely done! The handle looks great. How does it feel?

[Dave Martell]

Rick, you should be VERY happy with yourself, that's a really nice first handle for sure.


PS - #29 made me laugh - so true

[Von blewitt]

Wow! Nice job Rick! I have been wanting to try this myself, I hope my first go comes out half as nice!

[ThEoRy]

Super smooth. Fit and finish is pretty good. Very flush feeling, no pins or ridges sticking up high or low.

[Dave Martell]

Yup, CA glue to fill in the voids and re-sand/buff and you're golden.

[Dave Martell]

What's the liner material?

[ThEoRy]

I think it was G 10, not sure. Lemme look at my jantz order.

[Crothcipt]

Dam man that looks like you have been doing it for years. Can't wait to see what else you come up with.

[ThEoRy]

Ok, It just says Fiber spacer. So it's not G 10 for sure because they have a whole different section for that.