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The process described below has more detail than most of my projects as this was my very first knife scale project and I want to document for my own reference. The knife in question is over 50 years old and has some sentimental value. As the opening photo show the blade was dull enough to handle without any danger of cuts.

The other two photos show the original knife scales and the plywood cutouts.

I traced the old knife handle, scanned it and used the bitmap as the bases for the tool paths. I added a pocket large enough to allow the thickness of the blade, ~.026 per side. I did not include any holes for the blade pins as they would be transferred from the blade directly to the two scales.

I cut a prototype out of .375" plywood with a .250" router bit (a router bit that needs to be retired) and by mistake used climb cutting which made a lot of noise and left very raw edge. Otherwise everything else was as expected including the blade relief depth.

I replaced the plywood with the .3" teak and machined it with a 3 flute milling cutter. During the first cutout I realized I forgot to reset the depth from .375" to .3" and proceeded to "engrave" the spoil board.

Setup:
Material: 0.3" teak
M.A. FORD #138250001, ¼"× ½", X-AL 3 Flute end mill
16000 RPM
2.0 in/sec, 120 inches/minute
0.5 in/sec plunge rate

Resetting the depth to .3" I cut a leftover scrap from the first mistake. That scrap leftover piece shattered because I set the depth of cut passes to 2, ~.150" per pass, way to much cut for thin material. I corrected that to 8 passed and I machined the last two pieces.

The blade relief pocket was not as uniform as I would have liked because the wood was slightly bowed and the edges had some chatter marks which, in this case, was not important as the assembly will be sanded.

I mounted the knife blade to one of the scales to locate and drill the blade mount holes and repeated that for the opposite side scale. The knife blade actually had three holes but the center pin was not used in the original so I didn't use it either and therefore allowing another glue spot.

I purchased some 5/32" diameter low lead content brass rod (RoHS compliant) from McMaster-Carr for the blade pins.

After press fitting two ½" pieces of the brass rod into the blade I applied West System G/flex 650 the two scales and to the blade. Adding two drilled gluing cawls to both sides of the assembly and mounting the assembly in a vise I carefully "pressed" the two scales together on the blade.

After 24 hours in a very warm garage, I sanded the scales. The photos shown do not have any finish because I don't know if I want to use CA or more of the West Systems epoxy.

Most knife crafters on Lumberjocks will probably get a chuckle out of my excruciatingly verbose description of such a simple project!

Gallery

Comments

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1,360 Posts
Sounds like a very well thought out project, and a great job as well!
 

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No one can say that they didn't have a clue how to make one after reading your process my friend.
Thank you.
I'm going to Favorite this just to save it for future use.
Thank you brother.
 

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186 Posts
Beautiful result. Very few heirlooms fall into the "High-Tech Antique Restoration" category.
 

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Well done on restoration, I'm very impress with the amount of work and head scratching involved for such a small piece, but for the ordinary people , nobody will suspect you put so much effort and time, bravo.
 

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Great job with the knife. The story makes me want to restore a knife my wife uses all the time and won't part with it. It's about 40 years old and needs a restoration like this. I will use your post as a push to help change her mind.
 

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Beautiful . Very nice grain and great fit. What type of CNC did you use?
 

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I like the result, but I haven't had my first cop of coffee yet, so I'll come back and read the details in a bit…

...you understand… (-:
 

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OK, had my coffee, and this stuff is still a language I don't understand, but the detail is interesting. Basically, I have never done any knife work, nor do I "machine" things, I assume with a CNC, but I don't know much about it.

Nursing an overuse "injury" of my right side (too much pressure washing at both houses), so the shop is off limits for a bit. Every time I forget I am getting really kind of old, the oversight comes along and bites me… (-:

I like sentimental projects, so thanks for the post…
 

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I like the 'excruciatingly verbose description'. For whatever reason, I like to hear in detail about what went right and what went wrong. It makes me think out future projects to the point where only a few things could go wrong, and if they occur, they were anticipated. This has helped in many projects lately!
 

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Thanks to all for the kind comments!

Rob, I used my Shopbot CNC, even though it was an over kill, because I don't have a bandsaw or scrollswaw. If I had either I would have glued the template to the blank and cut it out. Probably would have been simpler and easier but as all woodworkers know, you use the tools you have or make a jig to get it done.

observer100, I included the mistakes during this project because I want a full record of a project for future reference and maybe someone else can learn from my errors.
 

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The new handle looks 'right' on the old blade. A credit to your accomplishment and your memory of its sentimental worth.
 
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