Saturday, August 05, 2006
Menees Knife #1
This is the first knife I ever made. I’d been reading about knife making, and my father-in-law gave me a new scroll saw. I grabbed some pine strip and drew a knife blade on it. I used the scroll saw to cut the lines (instead of saving the lines), and then I went to work with my Black and Decker rotary wizard. I sanded everything with the rotary wizard, and I was holding both the tool and knife in my hands.
I used a cutting disc on the tool to carve out the saw teeth on the back of the blade. I didn’t mark them first, so they’re not spaced evenly. And I was still holding both pieces in my hands, which made for imprecise work.
I used a rectangular file to do the file work on the tang because that’s the only file I had at the time. It didn’t turn out too badly, but I had to go over each file mark with sandpaper to get off the splinters.
I used the same pine strip to make two handle slabs. I super glued them on and then drove two nails through it. Unfortunately one nail chipped the far side handle pretty bad. After I used the rotary wizard to carve the finger grips, I added on some non-slip decking strips to make very gritty handles. It looks ok, and it covers up the chipped pinout. The grit may sound painful, but it actually doesn’t feel too bad. Unfortunately, a little grit comes off each time I pick it up. :-(
Update: In mid-July 2006 I got a small 1”x30” belt sander, and I ran that back over the blade edge to smooth out some of the uneven spots created by hand sanding with the rotary wizard. That made it look a little nicer, but not much nicer. This knife is pretty in a way… far away.
Material: 1”x ¼” Pine
Blade Length: 5”
Overall Length: 9 3/16”
Started: Late June 2006
Finished: Mid July 2006
Labels: Knifemaking
