Thread: Knife handles and a knife block for the old man

This was a present to my father for his 70th. It took many hours of planning and research, not just on execution but I also trialled a couple of finishes and landed on 50/50 tung and gum turpentine.

I bought the knife blanks through etsy. I made the handles using gutta percha from a block that was left from my grandfathers (mums dad, who recently passed at 101 years old last month) wood stash. I made handle blanks from the small block and shaped them to the handle, wedging them in with a dry fit before drilling holes for the brass pins. It was all affixed with some epoxy and then I did a final shaping with a belt and disc sander, then sand sanded before finishing it off with 50/50 pure tung oil and gum turpentine. I did a soak of the handles for 30 mins, then wipe dry and allow to dry. Then a wet sand with the finish and allow to dry. Another wet sand and allow to dry. A dry sand and allow to dry. Then two coats with the smallest amount on my finger tip and allowed that to dry. I then buffed it just using white compound and a cloth drill press buff wheel.

The handles were hard to get right as the esty maker in China ball parked 30degees at the end of the knife cap, but it was either 28 or 29 and differed between knife and each knife side. Hard is the wrong term here, the correct one is time consuming.

Shaping the epoxied handles here I did slip up and not protected one of the smaller blades correctly and took out the corner that connects handle to blade. I fixed the look with a fine metal file.

The knife block was made from Vic ash/messmate. It was originally a hardwood structural post that dad found rotting underneath my parents house. He pulled it out and it had been drying for a couple of years before i nipped off with it from his garage and trimmed of the main rotted. I threw it through a mates thicknesser and jointer and boy o boy this wood was hard a nails. Completely dry, no issue there. We then ran it through the band saw to cut it into even sections. I cut 30 degree profiles of the sections for a leaning block and then used the knives to trace a profile. I the used a trim router, chisels and a stanley 71 hand router (the og) to carve out even depth spaces for the profiles. I tacked the sections together carefully with some thick nails using some holes I drilled. The outer sections hid the nails. A bunch of glue made it all come together after a dry test fit. I nipped the knife block along the belt sander at 120grit to take out any high and low spots where the outer sections slipped during the glue up. I then made a wedge so that the knife block wouldn't tip over. Glued the wedge on. Again, some slippage on the glue up towards the base which I took care with the belt and disc sander. I finished it using the 50/50 tung and gum turpentine mixture by pour over about 200ml, using a foil tray underneath, and constantly wiping for 60 minutes until the dry wood pretty much absorbed all the mixture. Over the course of a week I wiped off any finish that leaked out. I then poured on another 100ml and repeated the process.

The side with the rot, I just took a screw driver to it and cleared out any spongy rot. What is left is still hard wood.

All in all, at least 100-120 hours of work and research with many questions to friends and the internet with some of it being lurking in this forum. But hands down, they look amazing and dad hasn't stopped staring at them.20230521_163451.jpg20230522_123417.jpg20230522_123425.jpg20230522_123805.jpg20230522_123809.jpg