A bit more:
The handle glued up nicely. I left it clamped to cure for a day and had this:
The top was pretty clean, but the bottom will need some work.
I ground off the extended pins with a fresh 220 grit belt, intermittently, a bit at a time, so the pins didn't get too hot. Then the slabs were lapped with 180 grit on a marble slab to roughly flatten:
Then I began to clean up the profile with a fresh 120 AO belt.
Done with 120 grit:
I later used a spindle grinder to clean up the finger notch area. I'd just make a mess of things if I tried to do this on my grinder, or with hand tools.
Then with an A45 Trizak:
Now I can hand sand the spine using 400, then 600 grit. Same as on the blade, I'll alternate the sanding pattern with each successive grit to reveal and remove previous scratches. I do this now with a wide, flat footprint for the sanding block to ride on. I believe I end up with less rounding of the spine doing it this way, rather than after the handle has been shaped.
I use a variety of wood, brass and copper sanding blocks, both flat and radiused. I also use a variety of round wood dowels.
I'm getting there:
With the spine at 600 grit I'll now use the original template and a micrometer to scribe the bevel lines:
Lines scribed on both faces:
Here we go again with the funky angled blocks. This time 45 degrees:
Top done:
Bottom done. Grinding this one is tough, for me, on my grinder so I just hogged off the meat and I'll clean it up using a Dremmel and files. Thuya is VERY oily wood and it has a habit of clogging sandpaper, files belts, etc, so I used two fresh coarse drums for this job:
I'll also do the bevels on the finger notch with a Dremmel. :
This is good for the Dremmel. The rest I'll do with files.
Now I'll clamp the blade into this contraption so I can work the sides a bit easier:
Now, the tough part. This bevel has a twisted, warped, bent plane and its a chore to get it right.... and, keep a straight bevel line along the spine. This bevel took me about 2 1/2 hours. First few swipes:
Almost there. The butt end is a pain....
This bevel and side is just about there with files only - a bit more to do on that corner of the butt. I'll get that and the other side done tonight.
Still a bunch more shaping yet to come.
I would REALLY like to have any input at all on my tools, technique, design, materials, hair style..... anything!
I'd like to know how others would approach this job. :thumbup::thumbup:
Thanks,
-Peter