Howdy folks!
OK, so my cure for boredom at night is generally trying to learn something new, try something new etc to do with bushcraft... carving a lump of pine... making a bow & drill... practicing firemaking (er... on a big flat piece of metal).
So I figured I'd hop to it and rehandle my Mora Clipper.
Tis a great knife, but I've got quite big hands and I find that the size of the handle tends to crinkle my hands excessively and give me blisters (well, bigger & worse blisters than I'd get with a larger handled knife). Hence the rehandling.
Anyhoo, I just figured that I'd compile the messups that I had while making the handle, the messups I averted and the tips I discovered. By a knife-newbie for a knife-newbie
WARNING: image loaded!
Right...
Firstly, wrap the blade in masking tape. It'll protect your hands when you hold the blade, it'll offer some protection to the blade from scratches, and it'll leave little to no sticky residue. Then, I hacked the handle in two with a hacksaw - about two inches from the blade. It helps it you use another knife to cut the rubber off, it tends to close in on the blade and makes you work harder.
After that, take out a dremel (at least that's what I used. I'm sure there are other ways, but I'm not sure of them...) and cut along the handle, where the edge of the tang should be. Again, it helps to cut off the rubber. It's also best to cut at where the spine of the tang should be. There are a couple of dips in the tang on the front that you won't be able to get at.
Once you've cut around the back of the handle, cut down about a centimeter from each end on the other side. Then insert a flat screwdriver and pry open the handle. The blade should pop out:
Then you'll want to get your handle scales prepared.
It would obviously be possible to make the handle out of a single block, but I decided to use two. Now I think of it, I'm not sure why. But there you go
Seeing as this was inspired by boredom, I didn't have anything ideal at hand, so I used pine. I'll probably redo this in the future with a better wood (I'm thinkin' curly birch...)
One thing to note: Keep one scale thicker than the other by the thickness of the blade, so that when the scales are together the blade will be centred.
First thing I did was draw around the tang onto the thicker scale. Then I used my other Clipper to cut along the lines, so that when I start cutting wood out it doesn't go too far. Then I just start using the point of the blade to pick out wood, bit at a time. Shouldn't take long, ten minutes tops. You'll need to smooth it somehow afterwards, I recommend a piece of sandpaper wrapped around something squarish - I used a bit of split wood, about 4mm x 7mm x 60mm. Just small enough to fit, basically, it's not too critical.
The latter shows the tang "depression" ready for sanding.
When that's cut out and the blade can fit in and be flush against the wood, choose your handle shape. I picked a relatively common design (I think it's called a fishtail... not sure though) and drew it onto the wood. Make sure you take the blade positioning into account when you do this. I only drew it on one scale at a time, because I didn't yet have a template.
I started to rough out the shape with my Clipper, just for speed, At and concave curve, I filed down almost to the line (never hit the line until you're doing the final sanding!) with a round coarse file and then cut down to the file mark with the knife. Another tip: When cutting out concave (inward) curves, always cut towards the centre of the curve so that you don't split the wood. When cutting convex (outwards) curves, carve from the centre of the curve.
There was very little filing done at this point, mostly just hacking with the knife.
One scale roughly done.
At this point, I traced the outline of that scale onto the other. Using the same method, I carved the other piece:
Get the edge of them relatively smooth. You can sand, file or cut - I just cut, though. Very small cuts, like you're shaving. Not big chunks.
Then comes the fun part! Shaping the rest of the scales!
For this I used just my knife, some 80 grit sandpaper and a foot of 1 1/4" pvc pipe.
The first thing I did was to make some depressions for the larger parts of the hand - running down from the index and little finger. I found the round file to be too small, so I wrapped the sandpaper round the pvc pipe and used that.
The rest of the rough shaping was done with a knife. I smoothed all edges except the butt of the handle - I think that looks better with the corners, personally.
Then came the boring stuff: Sanding. It may be dull, but it needs to be done. Well, so say some - with pine I'm very lazy with sanding, just because it doesn't bother me. If I were to use curly birch, or anything I wanted smooth and shiny, then I'd work from 80 grit upwards until I'm using a blank piece of printer paper When sanding the scales it's best to tape them together to get the two scales flush. I didn't, but like I say, I'm just doing this for practice, I'll redo it with a better wood and do the seam better.
There really ain't much left to do. Score the blade with a dremel or hacksaw so that the epoxy will grip better, and then just epoxy the scales & blade together. You may wish to use brass rod etc to help them hold together or just to look good.
Once it's all glued together you may notice that the scales are not flush - sand them until they are and make it lovely n smooth Then do your waxing or polishing or whatever it is you need to do, and then you're done I guess I'm not quite at this stage yet, we ran out of epoxy so I'll need to buy some more later. I'll post pics when I'm finished though!
In the meantime...
Just a pic of me holding the knife to show a size comparison!
Remember to ask any questions you have and criticise whatever you wish
But also remember that this is the first handle I've ever made
Peace out!
OK, so my cure for boredom at night is generally trying to learn something new, try something new etc to do with bushcraft... carving a lump of pine... making a bow & drill... practicing firemaking (er... on a big flat piece of metal).
So I figured I'd hop to it and rehandle my Mora Clipper.
Tis a great knife, but I've got quite big hands and I find that the size of the handle tends to crinkle my hands excessively and give me blisters (well, bigger & worse blisters than I'd get with a larger handled knife). Hence the rehandling.
Anyhoo, I just figured that I'd compile the messups that I had while making the handle, the messups I averted and the tips I discovered. By a knife-newbie for a knife-newbie
WARNING: image loaded!
Right...
Firstly, wrap the blade in masking tape. It'll protect your hands when you hold the blade, it'll offer some protection to the blade from scratches, and it'll leave little to no sticky residue. Then, I hacked the handle in two with a hacksaw - about two inches from the blade. It helps it you use another knife to cut the rubber off, it tends to close in on the blade and makes you work harder.
After that, take out a dremel (at least that's what I used. I'm sure there are other ways, but I'm not sure of them...) and cut along the handle, where the edge of the tang should be. Again, it helps to cut off the rubber. It's also best to cut at where the spine of the tang should be. There are a couple of dips in the tang on the front that you won't be able to get at.
Once you've cut around the back of the handle, cut down about a centimeter from each end on the other side. Then insert a flat screwdriver and pry open the handle. The blade should pop out:
Then you'll want to get your handle scales prepared.
It would obviously be possible to make the handle out of a single block, but I decided to use two. Now I think of it, I'm not sure why. But there you go
Seeing as this was inspired by boredom, I didn't have anything ideal at hand, so I used pine. I'll probably redo this in the future with a better wood (I'm thinkin' curly birch...)
One thing to note: Keep one scale thicker than the other by the thickness of the blade, so that when the scales are together the blade will be centred.
First thing I did was draw around the tang onto the thicker scale. Then I used my other Clipper to cut along the lines, so that when I start cutting wood out it doesn't go too far. Then I just start using the point of the blade to pick out wood, bit at a time. Shouldn't take long, ten minutes tops. You'll need to smooth it somehow afterwards, I recommend a piece of sandpaper wrapped around something squarish - I used a bit of split wood, about 4mm x 7mm x 60mm. Just small enough to fit, basically, it's not too critical.
The latter shows the tang "depression" ready for sanding.
When that's cut out and the blade can fit in and be flush against the wood, choose your handle shape. I picked a relatively common design (I think it's called a fishtail... not sure though) and drew it onto the wood. Make sure you take the blade positioning into account when you do this. I only drew it on one scale at a time, because I didn't yet have a template.
I started to rough out the shape with my Clipper, just for speed, At and concave curve, I filed down almost to the line (never hit the line until you're doing the final sanding!) with a round coarse file and then cut down to the file mark with the knife. Another tip: When cutting out concave (inward) curves, always cut towards the centre of the curve so that you don't split the wood. When cutting convex (outwards) curves, carve from the centre of the curve.
There was very little filing done at this point, mostly just hacking with the knife.
One scale roughly done.
At this point, I traced the outline of that scale onto the other. Using the same method, I carved the other piece:
Get the edge of them relatively smooth. You can sand, file or cut - I just cut, though. Very small cuts, like you're shaving. Not big chunks.
Then comes the fun part! Shaping the rest of the scales!
For this I used just my knife, some 80 grit sandpaper and a foot of 1 1/4" pvc pipe.
The first thing I did was to make some depressions for the larger parts of the hand - running down from the index and little finger. I found the round file to be too small, so I wrapped the sandpaper round the pvc pipe and used that.
The rest of the rough shaping was done with a knife. I smoothed all edges except the butt of the handle - I think that looks better with the corners, personally.
Then came the boring stuff: Sanding. It may be dull, but it needs to be done. Well, so say some - with pine I'm very lazy with sanding, just because it doesn't bother me. If I were to use curly birch, or anything I wanted smooth and shiny, then I'd work from 80 grit upwards until I'm using a blank piece of printer paper
When sanding the scales it's best to tape them together to get the two scales flush. I didn't, but like I say, I'm just doing this for practice, I'll redo it with a better wood and do the seam better.
There really ain't much left to do. Score the blade with a dremel or hacksaw so that the epoxy will grip better, and then just epoxy the scales & blade together. You may wish to use brass rod etc to help them hold together or just to look good.
Once it's all glued together you may notice that the scales are not flush - sand them until they are and make it lovely n smooth
Then do your waxing or polishing or whatever it is you need to do, and then you're done I guess I'm not quite at this stage yet, we ran out of epoxy so I'll need to buy some more later. I'll post pics when I'm finished though!In the meantime...
Just a pic of me holding the knife to show a size comparison!
Remember to ask any questions you have and criticise whatever you wish
But also remember that this is the first handle I've ever made
Peace out!
