remakes

I wanted to make a handle similar to DT masterpiece. In my poor man's version wooly mammoth was replaced by raffir, bloodwood by bubinga and micarta by ebony. And I made second spacer thin to keep accent on the first spacer.

Ended up with this:




Messed a bit with tang hole and didn't like the finish. Still struggling with applying shellac. So decided to make another one. Since I don't have any more bubinga (nor do I have any desire to work with bubinga in future), opted for a cocobolo instead.





Don't like the proportions on this one. But the tang hole is nice and cocobolo grain is really nice in person.
but I'm a bit bored with these remakes, so probably gonna apply epoxy and call it day.

Very nice indeed! I know your frustration with making the tang hole, I've got a small drawer full of handles that I've screwed up the slot on.

Be well,
Mikey

Anybody have any specific recommendations on rasps/files/etc. that are good for this?

seward said:

Anybody have any specific recommendations on rasps/files/etc. that are good for this?

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Yes, WoodCraft has a good set of micro rasps for about $50

That is really nice looking! Do you not like the proportions because the handle looks to small (diameter wise).

Nice work!

Is the handle part hollow,do you have a drillpress?

Really nice, clean work! Diggin' that cocobolo grain

mkriggen said:

Yes, WoodCraft has a good set of micro rasps for about $50

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Thanks for this Mikey! I was looking for a good small rasps for quite some time. Liogier are nice but damned expensive. Those woodcraft rasps looks promising!

Bill13 said:

That is really nice looking! Do you not like the proportions because the handle looks to small (diameter wise).

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Good question. You see, every handle that I've made so far, I've made without using any measuring tools. I mean I'm still eyeballing tang hole, all the sizes and shapes. This leads to some imperfections here and there. I don't consider them to be bad. Actually I like some of the imperfections… they add a feeling of handmade thing. But some imperfections are just ugly. Like spacers that are uneven in their width or the shape could be too tapered etc. I intentionally make handles that are a bit smaller in diameter. And they aren't octagonal. That's because I do think this makes them more comfortable in hand. I'm searching for a silver bullet here… gonna try some bizarre shapes where half is octagonal and another half is oval. And diamond like shape. I've made prototypes from clay to see if the shape is gonna be comfortable in hand and I tend to like so far.

And in this particular handle I don't like the size of ferrule. It should have been longer. And the whole handle should be a bit shorter. And black butt part should probably be smaller. Actually I've made 3 handles in this design. The third one is much bigger and has better proportions… it gonna fit my 210 Shig when I finish it. So 3 handles in the same design were enough for me.

mhenry said:

Is the handle part hollow,do you have a drillpress?

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I got a drillpress lately but it's too small and allows making holes of only 3-5cm… so on this one I started with drill press and then continued to drill freehand to make hole deeper. It's not hollow, but the hole is pretty deep… around 4/5 of length.
I want a real drillpress badly… the one I have right now is just a small toy that shakes badly when drilling. This hobby became pretty expensive, so I had to slow down on new tools.


Without your feedback it would be much less fun for me, so please don't hesitate to post any criticism and ideas.

Let us know how the diamond shape works for you. I made a large gyuto handle with an eight sided diamond shape and didn't care for it. It just didn't set in my hand right, always felt like it wanted to turn. I ended up resanding it into a more conventional octagon shape. It's a little trim for a large gyuto now, but looks like a nice suji handle

Be well,
Mikey

They look very nice.

Yesterday glued handle to the blade and left overnight. Found the following today:



I feel sorry for another wasted piece of nice wood, but that's the price of learning

Bro, that sucks. Did you use a slow set epoxy or a quick set? I've found that the quicker epoxies I've used (15min or faster) create a whole lot of heat while setting, could be the cause.

Be well,
Mikey

mkriggen said:

Bro, that sucks. Did you use a slow set epoxy or a quick set? I've found that the quicker epoxies I've used (15min or faster) create a whole lot of heat while setting, could be the cause.

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I made a stupid thing and used gorilla glue instead of epoxy. Used a lot of glue… when I knocked this handle from blade about half of the glue was still not harden. Anyway, I've already started making two new handles

Yeah, gorilla glue doesn't work real well for handles, it tends to expand...alot. It also needs moisture to cure properly.