Thread: knife handle

One way is to drill a pilot hole, then heat the tang so it burns it's own seat. Be careful trying this, I'd recommend trying it on "practice" knives first, as it takes a bit of practice to get the tang hot enough to char the wood without ruining the temper of the blade. (If the handle bursts into flame, it's way too hot. )

You may find some info under tutorials here
and there are some progress shots on this website
but not much on forming the hole. I've seen some closer detail shots of the guy's work on Iforgeiron (here), and he seems to drill and/or mill the hole through the handle, maybe before the blank is shaped, I can't tell?

Cheers

I have done more or less what you are after for holes up to 3 x 24 x 100 mm long .

1. Start by drilling a 3 mm straight pilot hole (that's actually the hardest bit!)
2. Then use a 3 x 3 mm cross section piece of tool steel to make the round hole square. I did this by lightly hammering the steel into the hole a ~5-10 mm at a time and clearing built up shavings with the drill.
3. Then working from both sides of the opening use the 3x3 to slowly lengthen the square hole into a rectangular hole. You can grind a high angle edge onto the end of the tool steel but I just used it with a square end.
4. Once you reach 6 mm you can use a piece of 3 x 6 mm which is easier to handle and I was able to open the hole up to 12 mm wide just by hand.

I have done shorter (65 mm?) blind holes, such as for chisel tangs, in the same way - it's much better than wobbling a drill bit inside a chisel handle and hoping to form a suitable tapered tang hole. This method makes very snugly tapered holes and breaks far less drill bits

I usually just grab bits of tool steel I have laying around the place but one could probably make a square to rectangular hole tool set from old files - with care you could make them as small as 1mm?

The other quicker method I like is when there are definite top and bottom sides to a handle. I make a cut to take the blade from the bottom side of handle with a TS - 3 mm kerf seems to fit much of what I do. Then I fit the blade handle and fill the gap with a filler piece of the same timber. That's what I have done with a "surprise" tool I might show sometime in the next few days.

Cheers

Originally Posted by BobL

. . . . .
I usually just grab bits of tool steel I have laying around the place but one could probably make a square to rectangular hole tool set from old files - with care you could make them as small as 1 mm?

Well I enthused myself so much about making a tang hole making tool set so I checked out my existing tool steel stocks and found some small bits and pieces and here's the beginnings of a set (The Gavel is a semi-joke present for the boss at work - BTW the sound block is made from Red Tingle which is a pretty rare timber these days.)


The one at the bottom is a 3 x 3 mm chisel. (apricot handle)
The next one is 4 x 4 mm (redgum)
The top one is a 5 x 2 mm parting tool (apricot)
All the ferrules are copper plumbing fitting offcuts - I usually use copper to signify hand tool only (ie no mallet - although the redgum could easily take a light mallet)

Here with flash.


Here's a close up of the figure in the redgum - it's a bit like marble (I still have half a tree worth of this stuff!)

Thanks a lot guys, this is all very helpful. Especially drilling the piilot hole before any wood shaping takes place, to keep it well centered.

In terms of drilling pilots into end grain, I have found brad pointed drills seem to work better than standard twist drills in forming straight holes. The other trick if you have a symmetrical handle is to drill the tang hole using a lathe.

BTW I have been using my new tang forming chisels over the last 3 weeks and they work very well - am currently working on a 5 chisel set in which I have made extensive use of these chisels.

Will post when I have something to show.

Cheers

Hello,

pbriscoe1938,

Check out Brisa's tutorials on knifemaking.

https://www.brisa.fi/portal/index.ph...en&language=en

kippis,

sumu