Kramer style big fat handle lover affair, want my Denka with that handle.

[bzalforno]

despite having 2 TF Denkas and a TF Mab, I still love my ZKramer Euro knives. They sharpen incredibly easily to a super edge and I love the big fat handles despite the rivets being slightly proud. They were my first adventure in Japanese knives, which unfortunately has seen me buy about 25 knives since the pandemic started. I bought a customized Wat Pro Nakir,I, fully polished with rosewood handle. incredibly beautiful knife, that I never use.

Too many knives, not enough food to prep for just two of us. How many paper slices can you do to exercise the collection and validate the purchases?

I sent out the Mab to be rehandled and thinned. Even sent the ZKramer to show how fat I wanted to the handle to be. But it came back with a smaller coke shape handle than the Kramer. I think the problem is that the Kramer bolster is taller than the TF,,- and you can’t have the big fat handle w/o the bigger bolster. Is that the problem?

is there anyone who can rehandle and weld in a bigger bolster to recreate the big Kramer style handle on my 210 Denka? it also needs a cleanup of the wabi sabi blade. I asked for a fully polished blade with no dimples. Their version of full polish must have been to just look at the belt grinder. Really needs a thin and cleanup in addition to the rehandle.
‘it will put me upside down cost wise, but it is painful to look at in its present condition, despite really sharp out of the box. So I rarely reach for it.
thanks for any suggestions.
bob

 

[McMan]

I don't think you need a new bolster braised on. It sounds like what your describing is that the bolster is possibly not tall enough to fit well into a beefy handle without the looking like a toothpick stuck in an apple.
One solution would be to remove the bolster and simply mount the tang closer to the top of the handle and then blend the bottom of the handle. Like this:

Just about tweaking placement really...
Now that I look at the drawing, pretend the yellow is mounted flush, like this:

Another solution could be to keep the bolster and simply blend it at the bottom lightly.

 

[icanhaschzbrgr]

While its possible to weld one metal piece to another metal piece, I don't see the point.

You could just look for a custom knife that has fat handle and is free from any wabi sabi crap from the very beginning.

 

[tostadas]

Are you rehandling a western or WA version of the maboroshi? The WA version has a very skinny tang, and also the finger notch that you probably don't want to cover up with a "tall" handle. Maybe would help if you had a photo of the knife you want to rehandle, and sketch on top of it the sort of outline of handle you're looking for.

If you have the bolstered version, I think the solution would probably be to first grind/remove the original bolster, and build a new western style handle (either hidden tang or half tang) with a faux bolster. But the main challenge I forsee with making a Kramer sized handle on a tf is how you want to align the top/bottom of the handle. If you want to align top of handle with knife spine, then the bottom handle with cover up the finger notch. If you want to preserve the usability of the finger notch, then the top will not be aligned.

 

[bzalforno]

It is a western handle Denka. Th Kramer is aligned with the spine I think. We are in Italy right now so I can’t do any measuring or sketching till next week. But I think you are right about losing some notch unless a faux bolster that can be ground or some kind of rework is done on the notch. A custom would be an alternative, but I really like the idea of a unicorn Denka. It really has some edge, just a couple passes on strop,- and wow!

 

[Chopper88]

Sorry for this totally useless reply, but the first thing that comes to mind for me with the pictured knife is that it looks like a tree branch saw

 

[Boynutman]

What I found when I rehandled my TF Mabaroshi 210 is that making the handle more voluminous (while retaining the original tang shape) made a huge difference, feels like a much larger handle overall.
Not sure what the Denka handle situation is like so cannot speak for that.