Show us your sticks (finished handle projects)...

[Tekkz]

Just finished my very first handle! Actually my first woodworking project ever. Hadn't used a drill press, band saw, or belt sander before this. Took me way too long and I accidentally overground one of the octagonal facets. Other than that I'm thrilled with the result. Can't wait to do the next!

https://imgur.com/gallery/ztm0uKO

 

[Jaeger]

Good job what's the grit you get up to?

 

[Tekkz]

Good job what's the grit you get up to?

Thanks mate! 500 grit rhynowet sandpaper and Danish oil.

 

[Jaeger]

Wow, didn't expect that it'll become that shiny with 500 really cool

 

[jaydee]

become that shiny with 500

Danish oil contains tung oil and truly hardens. Depending on number of applied layers it can become very shiny; almost like a laquer but in a nice way.
It even makes cheap ho wood really shine.
I love the stuff!

 

[Jaeger]

Danish oil contains tung oil and truly hardens. Depending on number of applied layers it can become very shiny; almost like a laquer but in a nice way.
It even makes cheap ho wood really shine.
I love the stuff!

Ahh, okay. I mostly use stabilized stuff or compound material so I don't really need oil... But maybe it'll also work with stabilized wood as a nice finish coating

 

[cotedupy]

Just finished my very first handle! Actually my first woodworking project ever. Hadn't used a drill press, band saw, or belt sander before this. Took me way too long and I accidentally overground one of the octagonal facets. Other than that I'm thrilled with the result. Can't wait to do the next! View attachment 287055View attachment 287056
https://imgur.com/gallery/ztm0uKO

Well that's smart innit, nice work.

When I started making handles I too had never done any kind of woodworking before. Though my first efforts were nothing like as accomplished as yours!

 

[HumbleHomeCook]

Just finished my very first handle! Actually my first woodworking project ever. Hadn't used a drill press, band saw, or belt sander before this. Took me way too long and I accidentally overground one of the octagonal facets. Other than that I'm thrilled with the result. Can't wait to do the next! View attachment 287055View attachment 287056
https://imgur.com/gallery/ztm0uKO

Great job. Good for you!

That's waaaaay better than my first handle I'd done wood working and used all those tools a bunch before.

 

[cotedupy]

Difficulty in procuring high grit sandpaper and a certain type of hardwax oil here in the UK have made me slightly change the way I finish handles involving horn.

I still do the final shaping by hand, but only up to about 600 or 1k, then move onto a micromesh progression to take the ferrule up to a high polish, then take the main part of the handle back down with red scotch-brite, and finish with Tung oil but not left to set fully. Which is actually quicker and easier than what I was doing before, it's also cheaper as micromesh lasts a very long time if you're not using it on metal.

And I think the results are slightly better too; the horn here has a bright mirror shine, and the main part a lovely tactile grippiness. Bog oak, spalted maple spacer, and horn:

The knife itself is going to be pretty banging too once I've sharpened it. I did the final part of the grind and finishing myself, properly thin bte, with a slight righty bias.

All of which is very pleasing because it's for an old wine biz friend of mine, who's one of the nicest most generous people out there, and I genuinely can't think of anything I'd change about this knife and handle. It's completely perfect.

 

[HumbleHomeCook]

Always a pleasure Oli.

 

[Tekkz]

Difficulty in procuring high grit sandpaper and a certain type of hardwax oil here in the UK have made me slightly change the way I finish handles involving horn.

I still do the final shaping by hand, but only up to about 600 or 1k, then move onto a micromesh progression to take the ferrule up to a high polish, then take the main part of the handle back down with red scotch-brite, and finish with Tung oil but not left to set fully. Which is actually quicker and easier than what I was doing before, it's also cheaper as micromesh lasts a very long time if you're not using it on metal.

And I think the results are slightly better too; the horn here has a bright mirror shine, and the main part a lovely tactile grippiness. Bog oak, spalted maple spacer, and horn:

View attachment 287065

View attachment 287064

View attachment 287063


The knife itself is going to be pretty banging too once I've sharpened it. I did the final part of the grind and finishing myself, properly thin bte, with a slight righty bias.

View attachment 287066


All of which is very pleasing because it's for an old wine biz friend of mine, who's one of the nicest most generous people out there, and I genuinely can't think of anything I'd change about this knife and handle. It's completely perfect.

The contrast between shiny horn and rougher wood is lovely.

 

[Tim Rowland]

Just finished this one up.
African blackwood, dyed mammoth molar, g-10, stabilized buckeye burl.

 

[Jaeger]

This handle matches the blade perfectly

 

[Tim Rowland]

This handle matches the blade perfectly

Thanks...here is a full shot.

 

[cotedupy]

English Walnut is a really lovely species for knife handles in terms of feel and texture - basically perfect. But while it's quite nice to look at, it's rarely particularly interesting; sometimes has some nice streaky colour contrast, though the grain isn’t often very featured, and there's almost never any figure.

The tree that supplied our latest batch at work however was f-ing stunning. This is an offcut I grabbed today:

(I'm certainly going to be making a handle for myself from it, but @PeterL - give a shout if you'd like me to save you a bit. This wood is next-level pretty, and it'll look great with mottled horn...)

 

[PeterL]

(I'm certainly going to be making a handle for myself from it, but @PeterL - give a shout if you'd like me to save you a bit. This wood is next-level pretty, and it'll look great with mottled horn...)

This is beautiful. Please do put some to the side if you can. Love the feel of walnut but like you say never seen this figure in it before though.

 

[cotedupy]

This is beautiful. Please do put some to the side if you can. Love the feel of walnut but like you say never seen this figure in it before though.

Will do!

I'm really quite excited to see what this'll look like when properly finished, rather than having just gone through a band saw as in the pics above. I might have to make up a handle for that new yanagi over the weekend, watch this space...

 

[Tekkz]

Second handle done! Shape was much better this time. I made it for my mom's partner who is a huge Seahawks fan, hence the silly colors. Spalted tamarind with amboyna burl / g10 spacers.

 

[Tekkz]

Took a video in the morning light. It's on a cheapo suji but I don't think he'll mind.

 

[Uncle Danny]

Zebrano and buffalo

 

[Boynutman]

Comfortable & tidy looking handle!
Suits the nice tall blade too, what is it?

 

[Uncle Danny]

Fit my big old mittens
Zabrano and buffalo. Knife is a 240 Wakui WH

 

[Tekkz]

Third handle done. This one is Azfelia Xylay with g10 and nickel silver spacers. Has a gorgeous curly shimmer. Headed to a friend in Oklahoma for Christmas.

 

[cotedupy]

English Walnut is a really lovely species for knife handles in terms of feel and texture - basically perfect. But while it's quite nice to look at, it's rarely particularly interesting; sometimes has some nice streaky colour contrast, though the grain isn’t often very featured, and there's almost never any figure.

The tree that supplied our latest batch at work however was f-ing stunning. This is an offcut I grabbed today:

View attachment 288141

View attachment 288142

View attachment 288143

(I'm certainly going to be making a handle for myself from it, but @PeterL - give a shout if you'd like me to save you a bit. This wood is next-level pretty, and it'll look great with mottled horn...)

After cutting this up into blanks I had a little bit that was probably too small for a kitchen knife handle, but perfect for this very nice Puukko made by a work colleague:

From memory I think this is the first time I’ve ever done a handle for this kind of fixed blade / hunting knife. Here it is just off belts, the top is straight to the spine, the bottom flares out slightly toward the butt, western style:

I also put some taper in this way:

And I think the end result is quite nice, certainly not bad for a first effort :

 

[cotedupy]

Here's another one wot I knocked up yesterday afternoon using the same wood as above, on a 300mm 'Hoard' Kareu Tanaki Yanagiba, i.e. it's a Wakui second. There are a couple of small delam spots, but overall the quality and finishing of the knife is very high, I would buy another 'Hoard' knife in an instant if ever any more gyuto come up.

The handle is a neat demonstration of just how quick and easy this method is. Start to finish, including sawing the wood and glue-ing up the blank, it took me no more than an hour, and anyone could do it in under three. As explained in the thread linked above; what I've done here is saw the ferrule off the original handle leaving a little bit of the Ho wood for a light coloured spacer between the black horn and dark Walnut.

The polish is once again brought to you by @Steve56's magic Uchigumori fingerstones, which make even a polishing imbecile such as myself look like an absolute pro.

Note also in the picture below the pore structure in the grain. Some people are less keen on this in terms of fine woodworking, but it works quite well for knife handles because if the grain has noticeable pores like this - then you can finish a handle to a higher grit whilst still having it be grippy. Which is good because higher finished wood looks nicer, it makes the feature pop.

The original handle was burnt in, meaning I've got a perfect friction fit without needing glue for the install. And an ideal d-shape with barely any effort, just shaping the new bit of wood to match the ferrule.

I've not put a machi gap in here because the neck of the knife is large enough already. You can see it quite clearly compared to another yanagi where I did use a gap because the neck is shorter.

Anyhow, once again I'm extremely happy with how this has come out. I think I'm on a bit of a roll atm.

 

[M1k3]

Not new handles. Repairs on two of them.

On the left, I cracked the ferrule when I originally installed it on my Munetoshi. I put some super glue on it and it held up pretty good. Finally decided to properly fix it.

On the right, is the tragic victim of the "prep cook lemongrass incident". Not quite sure what I'm going to put this on. Fixing it nonetheless.

 

[cotedupy]

An old friend / acquaintance got in touch recently to ask if I could make him up another knife. I’d done a couple for him a while back and he wanted something around 165mm to sit in the middle of them size-wise.

Problem being I didn't have any normal 165 blades atm, only a few nakiri. So it was off to the grinders with one of these for some knifemaking/modding.

As well as changing the profile and regrinding the bevels I also modded the tang to make it easier to drill for, because he wanted a one-piece bog oak handle. And drilling one-piece handles is a right faff!

The forging of the blade was rather impressive, and it meant I could match it with a super-skinny laser grind.

Though when doing that I scuffed a bit of the KU on one side, so decided to take the whole lot off and then etch it.

The jet-black bog oak handle came out pretty nice too, I think it goes very well with the knife.

 

[Rideon66]

An old friend / acquaintance got in touch recently to ask if I could make him up another knife. I’d done a couple for him a while back and he wanted something around 165mm to sit in the middle of them size-wise.

Problem being I don’t have any normal 165 blades atm, only a few nakiri. So it was off to the grinders with one of these for some knifemaking/modding.

View attachment 294912


As well as changing the profile and regrinding the bevels I also modded the tang to make it easier to drill for, because he wanted a one-piece bog oak handle. And drilling one-piece handles is a right faff!

The forging of the blade was rather impressive, and it meant I could match it with a super-skinny laser grind.

View attachment 294917


Though when doing that I scuffed a bit of the KU on one side, so decided to take the whole lot off and then etch it.

View attachment 294914


The jet-black bog oak handle came out pretty nice too, I think it goes very well with the knife.

View attachment 294913

View attachment 294920



View attachment 294919

That's a nice right conversion there Oli. Good one mate. Actually removing the KU and etching helps the contrast with the dark bog oak pop.

 

[cotedupy]

That's a nice right conversion there Oli. Good one mate. Actually removing the KU and etching helps the contrast with the dark bog oak pop.

Mmm… I hadn’t thought about that, but I think you’re right, I’ll have to remember it for the future. It does look really cool this knife / handle combo.

 

[cotedupy]

Got me some new bits of blonde mottled horn in yesterday:

Some very nice pieces in there, including quite a few with with red marbling in them, which is somewhat uncommon. But the absolute jewel is the piece on the bottom right, which is a very rare combination of red and 'cream ivory':

You can see in the pics below the colour difference between 'cream ivory' and the normal 'jade' blonde horn:

And for anyone wondering what the f I'm talking about, and why... here is a link to James's explanation of colour classification in natural horn:

https://www.knivesandstones.com.au/blogs/default-blog/k-s-natural-horn-color-classification