Making a Wa Handle with Hand Tools... continued

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tostadas

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This is my second attempt at a wa handle, this time trying to stick to a more traditional octo design. Similar to my previous handle, this one was also just using primarily hand tools (saw, drill, sandpaper on an atoma block, and various hand files).

I decided to go with a cheap piece of maple I got and african blackwood.
a1.jpg


And the knife for this one is a fun little 170mm Kyohei Shindo.
a2.jpg


Holes drilled and dowel sized for the tang.
a3.jpg


Glued up and sanded the edges to be roughly square. Then measured off on both ends for sizing. The lines drawn on the sides of the block were my guides for sanding.
b1.jpg


Cut/sanded it down to size and also shaped the facets. Tapered 19x23 to 21x26, 120mm. I dislike really small handles, so I made sure this one had enough thickness to fit my hand comfortably. And I simply adjusted the length to maintain the balance of the knife.
b2.jpg


After fine sanding, rounding all the sharp edges, and with a few layers of hardwax oil, now the detail in the wood really pops.
1.jpg

2.jpg


I also did all my fit and finish improvements on the blade itself. Rounded and smoothed spine, choil, and reshaped the pointy heel. Then removed the sandblast finish and vertical grind marks, polished the core and applied a smooth kasumi finish. Balance is right in front of the choil
3.jpg
4.jpg


Choil shot for good measure.
5.jpg
 
Looks great! How much time did you put into it ?
I think around 10hrs give or take. It was done maybe 30mins to an hour at a time, whenever I had a bit of free time to spare. Getting it to size with sandpaper took a long time. Second biggest chunk of time was finishing it. Since so much of my time was already going into it, why not go all out and make sure it's perfect to the best of my ability.
 
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