woodturning handles for kitchen utensils

[daf]

Hi folks,

I was walking around Carbotec in Adelaide, saw some kitchen utensil componants that just require the handle made. The cake slice had an end which was flat and obviously slid into a slot in the handle. Thus my question, how do we make the slot in the handle? Clearly I'm missing something.

your thoughts please ..

Dave. :)

[Pat]

Hello Dave, for the cutlery, I turn up the handle to a suitable size, around 12 - 15mm diameter. Towards the end you wish to insert the tang in, I turn it down to match the shaft. To attach the two, I drill the handle to match the tang. So if the tang is 5mm square/flat/round, I drill a 5mm hole in the handle for a "friction" fit. If it is too tight to push in, you can enlarge the hole by 1/2mm or chamfer the start of the hole to give a good start and lube the tang with a very slight amount of wax.

When done right, the rellies and friends will ask you for more cutlery, so whip up some practice handle to get your methods up to scratch.

[BobL]

Making a tang hole.

1) Drill the hole to suit the round part of the ferrule (5mm diameter) but about 5 mm longed than the tang

2) Then I use one of two slot cutting tools I made out of hacksaw blade blades
that look like this.
http://www.woodworkforums.ubeaut.com.au/attachment.php?attachmentid=92153&stc=1&d=1230028165
I use these to cut vertical slots either side of the hole to accommodate the tang.

3) Epoxy the blade and ferrule into place.

Cheers

[daf]

Thank you both for the information. Once again it comes down to getting the knack of it. I will have to buy a couple of the items when in store next.

I like the modified hacksaw blade tool also. Sounds logical when you think of it. I love it when someone comes up with a solution either by recycling a tool they already have or modifying one. I have a few old flat files which I am going to attack with the grinder and make some basic lathe tools. All good fun. :):)

[rsser]

Another option is a split turning reassembled with a piece of infill that's been shaped to accept the tang.

[BobL]

The other things I made to make tang holes were a couple of small (eg 3 x 3 mm) chisels, using M2 tool steel stock from McJing.

http://www.woodworkforums.ubeaut.com.au/attachment.php?attachmentid=68877&d=1205062153

I usually use these to make rectangular sided tang holes but for kitchen utensil tangs they also get the side slits started a bit quicker than the hacksaw blades. I basically run these down the sides of the hole to create V-shaped grooves like this. Then I used the cut down hacksaw blades because they then fit inside the tang hole a little easier.

http://www.woodworkforums.ubeaut.com.au/attachment.php?attachmentid=92196&stc=1&d=1230073599

[petersemple]

I know that this is an old thread, but I am going to resurrect it to add this post because I just used it as a reference for turning cutlery handles, and wanted to add in my experiences. What I discovered is that the drill hole for the ferrule for the cheese knives I had was just the right size to allow a fine jigsaw blade in (obviously hand held, not in the jigsaw), so that is what I used to cut the slit for the blade tang to snug into. In my case it was a Bosch fine cut blade because that is what I had. I imagine any blade that is about 4mm or so wide would work. If you want to be really high teck I guess you make a wooden handle for it. Just wanted to add this in because using a jigsaw blade doesn't require grinding a blade away specially.

Peter

[artme]

I simply drill A hole to suit the size of the tang and use CA to glue toothpick or matchsticks to the tang. A little paring and papering here and there and then medium CA to glue tang into hole.

[Rum Pig]

I drill a hole to match the tang but ever so slightly smaller. So it will not spin inside the hole and fill with epoxy never had one fail yet:)

[brendan stemp]

I'm with Rum Pig on this one. I drill a 1/4" hole and use 5 min epoxy glue. Epoxy is a good gap filling glue so one needs to use enough to fill the whole hole except the tang. I had a job to do 500 cheese knives and used this technique. I had several handles lined up on a rack and put a small amount of part A then a small amount of part B then kept on repeating until enough glue was in the hole. Then I inserted the tang and swivelled it around to mix the glue. It worked well.