infernos rehandling thread.

So I bought a few new knives, some wood and 2 japanese saws. So now I intend to personalize a few knives.

I have 2 good ones at work that I will do there when times allow.

But at home i have 3 other knives. victims are as follows: A fiskars made out of a kitchen sink, a brand new unused mac santoku, made out of cryoed aus-8 which I regard as the best stainless in the entire universe, and it says superior on the blade so it must be good right. and lastly a jck blue moon in ss clad blue2. and it takes an insane edge... this one get scary sharp. and it was cheap.

and as for wood we have sheoak, bocote, ziricote, olive, masur (extreme/AA/best quality), low activity/cheap zebrano, sumac, turkish walnut.
My favs are olive and masur for light ones and turkish walnut for dark. they look so bad ass oiled up its insane. and as a scandinavian I knew already at the age of 5 that masur was the best wood in the entire world. :biggrin:
olive is a total underdog though and its just as good, but different.
turkish walnut is also killer but its hard to get really good pieces. I use this one for "bolsters" only since its very hard and durable wood.
When using metal bolsters I use 6al4v Ti. since its very corrosion proof and nice.

I use the scandianavian/mora method for all my handles, all are hidden tang, since i regard visible tang/rivets as sign of a cheap and unfinished knife (maybe its just me). And you can see my secret weapon there. a small saw blade in a handle (instead of needle files).

I try to make these as good as physically possibly since they are for myself, no shortcuts, so it takes quite some time to finish something! you were warned.

I will answer questions if you have them. Why I do this or that this way etc.

Great, I need to compile my stuff too. Can you elaborate on this mora method?

Are the wood names left to right?

Yes they're named in order from left to right.

Looking forward to seeing the results!

I've had terrible luck with olive. Dried it naturally for 6 months, still wound up with hairline cracks after handsanding. Real bummer. Have a few blocks I intend to let sit for a couple years before even thinking about touching them.

Danzo said:

Great, I need to compile my stuff too. Can you elaborate on this mora method?

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yeah maybe it was poorly worded. mora is a town in sweden where they make scandinavian ground, no frills more or less "disposable" (for some) knives.

But what I really meant was the "scandianavian method", but since mora and scandinavian knives are synonymous everywhere except here, where they make them, I used mora instead of scandinavia. so everybody would understand.

basically you drill a pilot hole in the wood and file it up from there so its snug on the tang and not flopping around. and it should have no gap between tang/end piece (be it wood or some bolster) it should be as tight as possible before you glue.

Now this is tricky if using only one piece of wood and no real bolster. You are filing the hole/slot to the exact tange shape, more or less.

Then you can get lazy and drill a much larger hole and only file to shape the last part where the handle meets the cutting edge.

or use a thin metal bolster and only file that, and drill the rest out. most people do this.

This is different from a japanese handle where they drill a hole in the wood, then have a dowel with a slot in it, then a drilled piece of water buffalo horn "ferrule" on top of that dowel. Thats quite a sh1tty method imo. but good for mass production.

there are no ferrules or dowels in "scandinavian" knives.

Basically you drill and file the bolster, and snug it up on the blade, then you do the same with all the following parts, working outwards on the tang.
Then you glue it and press everything towards the bolster.

All the knives I make for myself I try to do the best way.

I did make an exception though this week......

I'm whittling the handles to the rough shape, since it produuce no dust. my good frosts o1 whittling knife that i stole from my school when I was 12, was most likely run in the dishwasher then thrown away a few years ago by some people I lived with.
it looked like this (look below) but with an "ergo" plastic handle. best small knife I ever had. exact same blade.


So I made another whittler. a good one. I made it from a full size mora someone threw away at work. it was 100mm, now its 45. and ergo, and grippy.
its ok steel. its c100 similar to 1095. but from experience I know these only keep their edge maybe 1/5 as long as the o1 knives, and only get half as sharp kinda.
This ones gonna kick ass!



then I managed to bring somethbing else from work, wattaf*kk can it be????
Gonna be finished very soon though. maaaaybe tonight

dafuq can it be???

in to win...
like the idea of lesser blades brought up to a better standard: profile/grind/handle etc.

Metoo...

To be honest the sh1tty fiskars aint thast ****** if you keep it sharp. I used a sharpmaker to keep it seriously scary sharp all the time. Everybody that used it cut their fingers...
I also had a victorinox wooden handled dimpled santoku that got for 50% off at a closeout and I sharpenened that on the sharpmaker and accidentially cut my finger into the bone almsot without me actually feeling it.. I just saw the blood..
sharpmakers may be frowned upon here but to be honest there is no better sharpener for the non "complete knife nut" in the world. Its not fast when working s30v or doing lots of stock removal but just keeping stuff sharp.. yeah completely competent of that. I loan it to people at work now.

anyway it seems I have actually finished a project. :shocked3:

Its that white crap you saw. but it was more white when it was only rough sanded I noticed. now its more offr/bone white.

I'm just gonna review/select the pics and then shrink, de-exif and upload. it turned out good though. IMO that is.

yeah kinda done. maybe I'll thin the handle towards the edge both in thickness and height a mm or 2. but other than that its what i intended.
Its a kurosaki hammered blue 2 santoku. and now its raped too. never knew what hit it.

the last pic aaaaalmost depicts the whiteness of the white that I actually see. even though i have one of the best cameras in the entire history of mankind (a d750/tamron 35/f1,8) its stil pretty hard to actually capture what I see with my eyes. Its either washed out a bit (and digitally clipped to white) or its bone white. go figure. And I actually happen to know how to wrench a camera. yeah this is the best it'll get for now. all in all.

for those wondering; its white g10, which in itself isnt really that white to be honest. I had a similar handle made up out of "arctic white" corian. but since corian glues quite bad except to itself with the special corian clue that actually chemically melts the corian pieces together, aaand its very brittle for a plastic (its actually aluminum hydroxide in a pmma matrix ((polymethylmethacrylate aka acrylic, not to be confused with regular meth)). and hydroxide means actually means alu oxide in earthish. I opted not to use it for this project.

But arctic white corian is ultra white, the whites ever white one could ever imagine. I recommend it if you want really really pure white. but its a lot of work...
:EDIT: I have a slab of arctic corian that I kept from when I used to machine this all day long as an interior carpenter. I can put the knife on if you want to see the difference. :EDIT:

I have noiticed that all my pics looks fatter up-down than left-right compared to the reality. I'd say the knife lenght should be about 10-15% longer compared to the height. And I actually put the very knife up to my monitors and tested this, this is how i know. at the exact same aspect ratio. mother fuXXer!! something is wrong. I dont like wrong.

And I have absolutely no idea if its my monitors/graphics card/camera/lens/operating system/simply physics with angles and distances (quite likely, but not entirely). this **** sucks. And its the first time I have noticed this.

ANYWAY. now with my first project done I have set the goal for the next one. Its pretty abstract you'd might say. but still.

The next knife I finish should be just as much or more beautiful than this woman (not gonna be easy to be honest). this is the goal at least. I have to choose my woods/blades wisely obviously. I will do my best.
[video=youtube;0-EF60neguk]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-EF60neguk[/video]

so sitting here all happy and ****. and semi drunk. I noticed I had finished all my beers. dafuq to do now?? luckily I have a whole bottle of shivas 12 years here that a coworker gave me. so why not start on this one right?

Yeah why not?

So I did. anfd after maybe half of the first drink I started thinking about maybe "stress testing" the kurosaki. Basically it was laying there all the time and I had it in my hand most of the time so why not use this one??

Since I had been drinking beer since I finished job the beer can testing methology felt very natural. Basically I wanted to slice a been can in 2 with 1 swipe. and if that didn't work i'll try to split it the other way (top down). yeah well it didn t go too well to be honest. and my "weapon of choice" didn't like it too well either. it chipped out pretty badly. macro.

no fukn joke. lol. about 3mm deep or so. it still better than zdp- obviously. Now i have made this with other blue 2 knives and no harm done, for example blue moon from jck. be it profile or h,t who knows. the kurosaki was no supermodel slim to me at least.
<br>[video] [video=youtube;acIBo01teCQ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acIBo01teCQ[/video][/video]

luckily it only took me about 90 seconds on the atoma 400 to grind it out. yeah now its 3mm slimmer but still. probably gonna spend at least one more hour on the stones to set a good profile, but I think this will better done while sober. and we'll se when that happens then.

For toughness I'll give the kurosaki about a 5 out of 10. then I have considered the grind and steel type. Soon i will be making my own knives and they will be able to chop up at least 10 kilos of alu cans, i will make sure of this myself. performance steel. none of this bs sh1t. Too bad for me good steel dont come in strip, but in slab/bar.

90 seconds gentlemen (and ladies) to grind that chip out.









maybe I'll shoudn't have done it in the first place. who knows. but now i know. alu is about 20 or so on the hrc scale. it it even went that low that is.

Mr Drinky you're not.

"This is different from a japanese handle where they drill a hole in the wood, then have a dowel with a slot in it, then a drilled piece of water buffalo horn "ferrule" on top of that dowel"

That's not how the japanese do it in general, the ferrule is fit in top of the handle wood which is in one piece. Your traditional mora also have that construction. With a thin metal ferrule (and none of those constructions needs nasty chemicals. Seems you like to have opinions.

RDalman said:

"This is different from a japanese handle where they drill a hole in the wood, then have a dowel with a slot in it, then a drilled piece of water buffalo horn "ferrule" on top of that dowel"

That's not how the japanese do it in general, the ferrule is fit in top of the handle wood which is in one piece. Your traditional mora also have that construction. With a thin metal ferrule (and none of those constructions needs nasty chemicals. Seems you like to have opinions.

Click to expand...

Well all japanese handles I have split was wood with big hole (bottom wood), then sawn/split dowel, then ferrule on top of the stickoing out dowel.

And its not my favorite method of construction.

I made some new stuff.

mr dalman: har du elektrisk härdugn? funderar på om jag skulle kunna komma förbi hos dig och härda ett par blad. men det blir nog om minst 1 månad fram i tiden. det här skulle då va extremt högpresterande blad (imo). högre "prestanda" än cpm3v (förhoppningsvis/troligtvis). (man kanske skulle kunna köra nån shootout men då måste jag fixa fram 3v i tunna bitar. tror denna legering tar 3v. det blir naturligtvis "destruction testing"

inferno said:

Well all japanese handles I have split was wood with big hole (bottom wood), then sawn/split dowel, then ferrule on top of the stickoing out dowel.

And its not my favorite method of construction. ...

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I can see how that would be easier to get a good fit, but it's not the traditional way of fitting a Wa handle. I swear Jon @JKI shows the process in one of this videos, but I can't find it. I found Maksim [video=youtube;ZajZh8aps6Q]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZajZh8aps6Q[/video] demonstrating a rehandle.

Also, I saved a link from Blade Forums on making a broach to shape a hole into a tapered rectangle to get a closer starting point.

I dig that red liner frame handle on the right. One of my favorite combos, red with a light colored wood

Tyvärr jag härdar bara mitt eget. Du kan skicka till si knives eller mix. Tror båda samlar och skickar till någon härdverkstad i skåne.

RDalman said:

Tyvärr jag härdar bara mitt eget. Du kan skicka till si knives eller mix. Tror båda samlar och skickar till någon härdverkstad i skåne.

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I see. Funderar på en evenheat härdugn. eller helt custom med en halvcylinder från kanthal. Funderar på att göra ett par svärd i framtiden så en lång halvcylinder från kanthal blir nog billigast. då.
Har noterat att alla evenheat kör 240v och ska man ha en lång rackare så blir det typ 7kw från 1fas. det kan man nästan inte plocka ut nånstans. 3 fas no problem men 1fas 7kw??

Vad rekommenderar du för härdugn? eller rättare sagt vad har du testat som varit bra?

Danzo said:

I dig that red liner frame handle on the right. One of my favorite combos, red with a light colored wood

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I think its buckeye whatever wood. and its a factory knife. its a hiro/shiki LE santoku. and this one was truly limited it seems since now it another wood for this series. Workmanship on the handle and fit/finish is about 9/10 on these. Could have done it better myself but wouldnt have been worth it kinda.

ok some updates.
I'm oiling my 2 newest builds. the olive/ziricote one is the jck blue moon you saw above. this will be my "abuser"
And the bocote/masur-turkish walnut bolster is a jck r2 vortex damascus santoku, its gonna be veeery pretty. and its very delicate and thin. completely intolerant of any abuse I'd say. Maybe I'll cut some fat polymers with it to judge tearout as a stress test.


then we have my workshoop, almost all of it. yeah the stanley vise is my workshop. and then a few files, some needle files, 2 japanese saws, some rasps, a cordless drill. and a few clamps. but thats it. pretty much.
this handle will go on the plain jane mac i showed earlier. Its cryoed aus8 so it will probably be my best performing steel.

I like the olive and ziricote handle, very creative! That ziricote turned super dark. Was it a darker part of the block you showed earlier? What kind of finish did you use?

I want to like the masur birch and bocote handle but that combination isn't eye pleasing to me. Butt props to you for doing what you like!

milkbaby said:

I like the olive and ziricote handle, very creative! That ziricote turned super dark. Was it a darker part of the block you showed earlier? What kind of finish did you use?

I want to like the masur birch and bocote handle but that combination isn't eye pleasing to me. Butt props to you for doing what you like!

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The ziricote piece was basically from a non figured part, not the gray/black transition zone. It was for a cheap blade so I figured I'll save the good part but now in retrospect I should have used a part that was 2 colored.

I use Liberon pure tung oil for my handles. first diluted with acetone then on its own. I do at least 10 coats. neither ziricote not olive sucks up oil very well though. So next time I'll use these I will leach out the oils with brake clean.
The bocote sucks up at about 3-4/10 and the masur and turkish walnut gobbles up pretty much anything I can put on there, the masur is "dry" 30 minutes after application lol. I guess it likes the oil.

I'm beginning to finish these 2 knives. Just have to demask them.

Also the masur/bocote one has a flip side thats maybe better looking, since the bocote and masur on that side is different.

moar

ziricote at +3ev to see any action at all.

ok now I have demasked the new ones. I will have these for the rest of my life, like 70 years or so, so its important I dont cut corners, not too may at least.

the jck vortex damascus turned out brutal hell, its one bad muddafukkah in real life. hehe

Also got some wood on the new mac. sawed it with my japanese saws. we'll se how it turns out. only had a short piece of turkish walnuut left so it had to be modeled of the blue moon handle.
thats how it is sometimes. turkish walnut turns out really nice though when finished. better than pretty much all burls imo.

The reason you dont see any activity in the walnut bolster (its full of it) is because of something called dynamic range. first the camera has limited dynamic range 14 bits/ev or so, then the monitor has a DR of about 8-9 bit or so, and a jpeg doesnt have 14 bit at all its like 9 iirc. so I have to choose if I want to show the grain of the wood (light colored) or the activity of the walnut. a hbuman eye has a DR of about 20bits/ev fyi. thats how it works. its all about priorities.

[video=youtube;KBx1Q3DEyDY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBx1Q3DEyDY[/video]