First Knife Finished

[DarrylF]

I've finished my first attempt at a knife - this one I made for carving, figured it would be easier than a chisel for shaping difficult curves as I'm making replacement totes for several planes at the moment.

The metal is from a used-up plane blade. The wood I'm not entirely sure on, but I think it's redgum - got a 2m length a while back and it's pretty badly twisted, so this looks like a great way to use beautiful timber. The infill strip is canary sassafras. Glued with epoxy.

The finish is 6 or so coats of Rustins Danish Oil, rubbed out with 0000 steel wool & Neil's Traditional Wax.

Fits my hand well and feels good to use. Now I need to finish a thinner blade version of it and a marking knife.

[DarrylF]

View of the other side - has a flat section right near the back of the blade where my thumb can rest.

[derekcohen]

Darryl

That's just superb!

You've inspired me to try the same on a spare blade.

Give us a run down on your method.

Regards from Perth

DErek

[bigAl]

Great stuff Darryl,

I'll try it too as soon as I get a chance. I've got a little piece of figured Gidgee that'd be ideal!

[Bob Willson]

That looks beautiful. Make me up a couple too would you please? :)

[Caliban]

Hey Darryl
Nice, very nice.
Come on give us some of the juicy details. How long is the tang? No visible rivets, did you only use epoxy? Did you go through the tempering process? If not how did you sharpen it? etc?
cheers
Jim

[griffo]

details, details please...

griffo

[DarrylF]

Thanks guys :)

I started with an old used-up Stanley #4 blade. Cutting it was near impossible of course, so I ground a V in each end until I'd separated the two halves. I then started shaping the blade, mostly on the grinder, but also on a 1" vertical belt sander.

The tang is near the full length of the handle - maybe 10mm short. The whole knife is 150mm long, the exposed blade 43mm long and 18mm wide. The tang is around 10mm wide. I roughed up and ground notches etc in the tang, reasoning it gave the epoxy more to grab hold of.

Of course grinding the hell out of the metal meant destroying the temper. I read up a bit, and despite best advice managed to harden the blade with a normal propane torch. Got it glowing red hot, tested it with a rare earth magnet on the end of an old metal letter opener (it's ready when the magnet doesn't stick), and dunked it in motor oil. I cleaned it up then tempered it - heat until light straw colour on the edge then quench. I've since bought a MAPP gas torch, which is supposed to do a much better job ($70 or so).

I did most of the final cleanup of the blade before I glued it all together, and most of the sharpening. 1" vertical belt sander using various grits, then stitched cloth wheel & compound on the grinder for the bits I didn't mind rounding over a little.

I cut the 'scales' I think they're called (two wood sides) on the band saw, and got rid of the saw marks on the inner faces on a 4" belt sander. Just cut them square to start with, and well oversize.

I used a thin offcut of the canary sassafras from another job for the infill and got it right with a finely set block plane - same thickness as the blade. I cut it to shape with a stanley knife, it's actually two pieces. Dry assembled & got the fit right with a chisel etc.

Smeared slow setting epoxy over all the mating bits and put it together, getting drips of epoxy all over the place :) Clamped it with 3 clamps and left it overnight.

Once it was dry, I cleaned up the squeezed out epoxy on the wood with the disc sander, and on the blade initially with a very sharp chisel, then the cloth wheel on the grinder.

I cut the scales too thick initially, so wound up slicing off around 4mm each face at the bandsaw. I shaped it using the disc sander, belt sander, drum sander and a small block plane, finishing off with hand sanding to 400.

I wrapped the blade in masking tape to keep the finish off it. Over the space of a week I applied a coat of Rustins Danish Oil every night. Once done, I removed the masking tape, cleaned up where the blade meets the wood with a fine knife, polished up the blade again (removing the masking tape adhesive), then waxed the handle with Neil's wax & 0000 steel wool.

I then sharpened with a 3M microfinishing belt on the 1" vertical belt sander (brilliant - got it from Lee Valley) and honed on a hard felt wheel on the bench grinder.

[derekcohen]

Darryl

You done good!

What a wonderful learning experience.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[forge]

Wow ,Daryl .What a fabulous tool .Looks great .
Looks to good to use for woodworking
.Reminds me of some of the old english.
tools.
forge

[Pete J]

Darry

Just sucking up of course, but this thread is is good example of why I spend many hours tracking this site.

Great work and a fantastic result - I would like to own it even if only just to admire the quality.

Regards

Peter