How to make these contours??

Kevin Zito

Kevin Zito

KNIFE MAKER
Hey folks! Are there any "tricks" or tips to make the contours on the handle pictured below? I know it's experience, time, precision, and so on, but I wanted to throw this question out there just in case. Thanks in advance!
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Here's a great tutorial for visualization and layout. Once you begin thinking this way, you can think ahead on how to make any shape you want. From there it's all about looking at a rectangular block of wood and seeing the handle inside, then removing all the stuff that shouldn't be there. (paraphrasing Michaelangelo)

https://youtu.be/SV9RHk-WnEk
 
John Wilson said:
Here's a great tutorial for visualization and layout. Once you begin thinking this way, you can think ahead on how to make any shape you want. From there it's all about looking at a rectangular block of wood and seeing the handle inside, then removing all the stuff that shouldn't be there. (paraphrasing Michaelangelo)

https://youtu.be/SV9RHk-WnEk
Click to expand...

This is great, John! Thanks! I'm still in the start simple and totally finish a good clean knife phase.... But, I do get a bit curious at times. Thanks again!


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Handle contouring, in my opinion, is one of the best things you can learn to get that wow factor. You're already making a handle so why not give it some sexy curves? Like anything else, the design of the handle needs to fit the aesthetic of the knife. For instance, I'm a lover of all handles with palm swells- but I wouldn't put them on a Loveless drop point because that knife is a classic. Same as I wouldn't put tail fins from a '53 Cadillac on a Corvette. But I wouldn't put swoopy Corvette fenders on a Cadillac, either. Some knives try to be too many things at once and the end result looks absurd for any use other than a fantasy knife. Nothing wrong with fantasy knives but I wouldn't take one to the woods or break it out on the docks to cut line. The best knives are the knives with a purpose and everything about the design should be there to fulfill that purpose, to be true to itself. In the famous line from Ron Swanson to frozen yogurt, "Dear frozen yogurt. Be ice cream, or be nothing."

Anyhoo, I know you didn't ask all that. I tend to get caught up in stream of consciousness rants.
 
Okay. Here's a truly horrible drawing, but it should demystify the basics of how to begin contouring handles.

STEP 1: take your block of handle wood and actually draw your handle shape on it. This is the back view. It helps to do the sides as well so that you can visualize the finished handle.

STEP 2: mark your layout lines. Palm swells and contours have a point where they are fattest and a point where they are skinniest. These are your horizontal lines. They are the key to the shaping process.

Now draw lines connecting the skinny pinch points to the fat swell points. You are left with the areas of the green triangles.

STEP 3: Hog out the wood in the green triangle areas. You want to remove all of the wood in the green areas, leaving a handle that is shaped like the blue area.

Make sure the blue points are the same on the left and right sides of the handles. This is how you control your symmetry.

STEP 4: Now we begin rounding off all the high spots and knocking off the corners. On a belt sander this would be the slack belt stage. With files and rasps this is the finesse stage. We are creating rounded curves. We are removing all of the blue leaving the handle at the yellow dimensions.

STEP 5: Hand sanding. Hand sand the yellow areas and fine tune the flow of the lines and the symmetry.

69fb6639635429f7a8443c3cfe04fe26.jpg



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Wow... thanks John!! I'm gonna try to do this as carefully as possible. I'm in the process of making a chopper lol. And I'm determined to not put an ugly handle on it. Great advice above... I appreciate it big time.

Edit: when is elephant season? How many tags this year?



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thank you! this drawing is embarrassing LOL, but it should be enough to get someone started.


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