three wood handles...

Smallshop

Smallshop

KNIFE MAKER
Here's three Bowie handles I am working on...the top is Zebra Wood. chippy..."glows" but real straight grained...This will prolly be the only one. looks great on pool cues...knife handles? Meh...

middle is my new favorite wood. Pau Ferro...also known as "Bolivian Rosewood" (not a rose wood) and "Brazilian Ironwood" (a more correct term)
It is hard, dense, oily, and beautiful. no chatoyance but the color and tight grain make a muted finish especially beautiful. sealed it, waxed it...that's what you see. I will be making more knives with this one!This handle has a big check so I will put it on my hard-milled-bent-blade-pattern-machined experiment and keep it. i knew the check was there and wanted to see how it acted machining, filing, and sanding. I love this stuff!

bottom is Claro Walnut. works beautiful, unbelievable high-lights. Chocolate and orangish colors...super beautiful...I will be using this claro till Dad's gunstock wood runs out...which will be about 40 big handles if my guess is correct...(three blanks....)

Anyway thought y'all might enjoy some wood pics. (bottom pic is loading off rotation...sorry)wood 2.jpgView attachment 77398View attachment 77398wood 1.jpg
 
The Claro is eye candy...the pau ferro is "touch" candy....sands so smooth...acts like fidgit spinner...lol. I'll get a call then look down...yep...playing with the Pau Ferro handle again...
 
Beautiful handles.

I'm an sucker for chatoyance, whether in maple, cherry, walnut or anything else, and that Claro has it in spades. I also really like the Pau Ferro, especially the way you have it running diagonally.

These all look to be set up for a hidden tang, right? And your slots look very uniform from one handle to another. Could you share just a few tips, like what size and type drill bit(s) you use? I've only done a couple of hidden tangs and I really struggled with them.
 
I designed the slots to be parallel.( Tang is parallel)
I drill them in a milling machine with a 4 flute 1/4" endmill.(I had a used carbide endmill that I am using...and since the slot is just over 2.5" deep the rigidity of the carbide is helping) They cut a little oversize which works out well.

In the handle I drill three holes exactly 1/4" apart on center. The I drop the endmill down about .08 and go from end hole to end hole a bit at a time going about .01 past center for epoxy clearance. You can't get too crazy because the endmill will shriek if you go too deep or feed it to fast.(ask me how i discovered that...lol)

The tang is 3/4" wide and I radius it a full radius. It seems quicker and easier to round my steel than scrape my grooves even though wood. But I am only comparing to videos I have seen. A corner rounding cutter makes short work of the steel. I feel the radius left in the wood adds strength.

Perhaps because of the lightness of cut a drill press with an x,y,slide could be used. Milling is the way I tried it and it works...but other ways may be better...lol.

the fit should go together easily so epoxy does not become a nightmare.

As of right now I have made exactly one hidden tang knife....so...consider the source...lol. (i do have more coming together...)

Hope this helps.
 
Last edited:
Smallshop said:
I designed the slots to be parallel.( Tang is parallel)
I drill them in a milling machine with a 4 flute 1/4" endmill.(I had a used carbide endmill that I am using...and since the slot is just over 2.5" deep the rigidity of the carbide is helping) They cut a little oversize which works out well.

In the handle I drill three holes exactly 1/4" apart on center. The I drop the endmill down about .08 and go from end hole to end hole a bit at a time going about .01 past center for epoxy clearance. You can't get too crazy because the endmill will shriek if you go too deep or feed it to fast.(ask me how i discovered that...lol)

The tang is 3/4" wide and I radius it a full radius. It seems quicker and easier to round my steel than scrape my grooves even though wood. But I am only comparing to videos I have seen. A corner rounding cutter makes short work of the steel. I feel the radius left in the wood adds strength.

Perhaps because of the lightness of cut a drill press with an x,y,slide could be used. Milling is the way I tried it and it works...but other ways may be better...lol.

the fit should go together easily so epoxy does not become a nightmare.

As of right now I have made exactly one hidden tang knife....so...consider the source...lol. (i do have more coming together...)

Hope this helps.
Click to expand...
Those details help a ton, and I thank you. I don't have a milling machine but I do have a drill press and a vise with x,y slide, so I'm thinking I'll try that next time. Thanks, again.
 
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