Handle : JK Tin Knife in Walnut Burl

Hello All,

So I won a JK tin knife from JK knives in an Altoids competition Here and was fortunate enough to receive it form the maker himself when I went to the "MI Spring Gathering" Here where a bunch of us knife nuts group together and stare at each others knives.

Unfortunately I've let go of most of the pictures I took of the process because I usually upload them to an online picture service which requires regular cleaning out so I can upload more, but I do have some left and I'm now downloaded all of my past pictures so i can start posting them here. So in the future this shouldn't be much of a problem, at least not with new projects!

Here's the finished handle;

 Here's what it looke dlike to begin with:

The other knife that needs a handle in this picture is the JK Riverwoods companion designed by JDS1 (Bladeforum screen name, someone i think has a particularly good eye for knife design, but I digress), I have finished pictures of it in the "Picture post" linked on the left under "Handles I've finished" or whatever I've called the link, unfortunately I've lost all the Work in Progress (or WIP) pictures I had of it.)

The Tin knife is a neat little knife made from 1/8" thick O1 steel and when John gave it to me he asked if I was going to put handles on this one to. I found it hard to say no to that. Anyway, I came home eager to get going and proceeded to break two sets of walnut burl scales for this little knife.

Here are the scales taht actualy made it on the knife, sfinaly secured on there with brass pins. I slapped on a very poorly fitted pair of scales to avoid breaking any more and decided to sand them to shape on there to save any more "unlucky events."

FYI, when playign with sharp objects, tape up the sharp bit. I've wlays done this and have still been "bitten" on more then one occasiona dn have heard horror stories of emergency room visits from others. Buy some painters tape and get the sucker neutered before you fool around with it, it's just good sense:)

I then preceded to "round" the handle, as is my want. I like to make it completely round most of the time because it's just more comfy looking and I prefer the look. It takes more time but I'm not in a  rush, this is fun, remember :)

Walnut "burl" means that this wood came form one of those ugly "growths" on the side of tress, well, i don't find them ugly but they do kinda look like a giants nose leavings (sorry about that) but inside those growths are some very interesting grain patterns, like you see here. Now the downside of Burl is that the grain can created flaws in the wood, as you see on this right scale a piece of the wood came out after a little sanding. there's not much you can do to prevent this This wood has been even stabilized, (which essential means impregnated with a mixture of sorts to try and prevent cracking and breaking. it's a complicated and skillful process I do not do...yet...probbaly.) Anyway there are ways to fix it up using wood dust and glue, for exmaple, or sanding them out, i decided I didn't mind it so much.

The handle went very smoothly form here, the handle shape was easy enough to make getting at it's curves simple enough and overall it was a very enjoyable experience, yet again.

Here's how most of my sanding gets done now I have a vice, especial during the heavy duty shaping work:

I was lavish with the epoxy as well, just to make sure.  After I had to shaped the way i wanted using 100 grit sandpaper I went on to do the polish sanding up to 1000 grit.

Anyway, this thing's a mean little cutter. and is a very easy to carry around pocket companion. It's also much more comfortable in hand then I'd have imagined. for a while there I couldn't leave the house with it on my belt so i also made it a belt sheath, this made it much easier to do ;)

 In hand shot

 What the "damadged" side ended up looking like...I still don't want to "fix" it, that's character that is :D

 Anywho, hope you enjoyed the pictures and whatnot

See ya