Does it make sense to rehandle this knife?

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BlueWolf

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I like the blade on this, but well as you can see the handle leaves a bit to be desired. I dont' want to pay more than a knife is worth to get rehandled, but any opinions on if this is a good rehandle candidate and what kind of job suits it? Basic octagon maybe? BTW It's a 210mm gyuto with V10 steel I think. Might be too much epoxy on it though I don't know, I am not that experienced with this stuff,

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Whats the best way to upload photos here? I tried to insert image from a URL link to a Tinypic album and they came back as broken images. Cant you just upload an image directly to the thread that is on your computer?
 
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TinyPic has a field called "IMG Code for Forums & Message Boards" to the left from the image itself. Copy/paste code and you are good to go.

Regardless the handle, I'm not sure why do you want to rehandle it. Doesn't look that bad to me. I've seen much worse handles in my life. However if you are set on rehandling, I'd suggest making a 3 piece design (scales and thin 2-3mm piece of contrast wood in the center) as it would allow you to keep tang intact. Or you could shave some metal from the top of tang and convert it into hidden tang design, so that any WA handles could be used.
 
Yeah I was thinking about a Wa-handle. I just wonder if it would be difficult and if it might have alot of epoxy on it. I guess I could leave it as is, but thought I could do a little better and the blade is pretty good I think.
 
I mean its probably possible to rehandle it, just depends if you think its worth the time and the money, you might have to grind the tang down a bit too depending on how it looks but it shouldn't be too hard.
 
It depends how much you like the knife and how much use it gets.

Professional rehandling of a western knife can be quite costly, but if you've got the time, tools and inclination to do it yourself it can be done for a few dollars of materials.

If you're wanting an octagonal wa handle, the tang would need converting.
 
Thx for more info guys. So full tang conversion is better for a octagonal wa then? What other handles are good if you have partial tang? I don't want to convert the tang. Looks like were talking about $75 per knife about for basic job i'm thinking. Maybe if I get a few together I can get it done for a little less. I have two or 3 candidates now but I don't know if it is worthwhile. I think the blade really has to stand out to make a handle re do worth it. Not sure if this one has a good enough blade on it to make it worthwhile.
 
A rehandle for a wa (Japanese style) handle is very quick and simple. The handle can be purchased ready made and then fitted to the blade in a few minutes:

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZajZh8aps6Q

A western style rehandle is much more involved, as is a conversion.
 
A bit off topic but if those pictures are of your knife, its made of forged silver 3 (ginsan) steel instead of VG-10, which is closer to VG-1 or AEB-L.

(I actually kind of like the looks of that handle myself)
 
Yeah I was looking at that but it wasn't registering. it was described as having V10 steel, so well see what I get as I haven't received it yet. It depends how well it's done but i usually would prefer silver 3 over VG10.
 
Ahh maybe it will be ok after all. I'm not going to spin my wheels about it before I even get it. I imagine also that since western handle jobs are more involved that converting from a western to a wa could be more labor intensive than say converting from a D to a wa handle.
 
Converting from a d-shaped handle to an octagonal handle is simple, as shown in the video.

Custom handles from exotic materials will need filling and epoxy rather than burning in but it's the same basic process.

Octagon and d-shaped handles are both Japanese style wa handles.
 
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