i can has moar handles

Whoa, I would love to have a few of those on my blades as well. Great job!!

 

Thanks!

Some of those were made for particular blades that I'm planning to gift or sell later, while other were made just for fun. I will make a giveaway one day, just not sure how soon it will happen, as I'm trying not to stash too much handles lately.

 

Simply beautiful. I like the handling (hehe) of the taper on most of your work.

 

Very nice handles, Anton. I especially like those from the second photo. I would love to have any of those on a knife. Really nice work that you should be proud of. I wish I could produce handles like that.
- Kim

 

Few moar…

Koa/Blackwood



Maple/Bog Oak



Bog Oak

 

I think you're all crazy!
Every handle in this thread is sweet!
Quit yer bitchin' and send them to me...I'll dispose of them properly.
You'll never have to darken your sight with their presence again!!!!!

 

Seriously, Anton , these are sweet as hell...

 

I agree Bill.

This thread...and the fact that we can appreciate these handles as artwork on their own merit...puts me in mind of an interesting fact. Most aspects of Japanese blade history have spawned their own forms of art. Koshirae (Japanese sword furniture) are a well known art form, even without blades to be attached to. Tsuba (Japanese sword guards), and fuchi/kashira (butt cap and ferrule) have their own separate places on collectors shelves, with or without blades. Even seppa (spacers) and habaki (blade collar) have a place. Menuki (palm swells, placed under the wrap) have long been collectors items.

It looks to me...like our wa handles have attained much the same status, lol. They've come to be appreciated for their beauty in their own right.

At least with us .

 

These latest handles are also beautiful. Do you ever sell any of them?

 

Why would you want to buy them then you can get them for free? Drop me a message with what you are interested with and I'll try to make something for you

 

OMG - I´ll be right there!

 

During last year or two 5 different bakeries opened within 10 minutes of walking distance from our house. At least 3 of those 5 produces gorgeous bread and all kinds of deserts. Because of that we stopped buying sliced bread in supermarkets and keep getting fresh hot bred every day right near our house. Gyutos doesn't do good job for me slicing bread, so I tried Tojiro serrated knife and quickly fall in love. So does my wife. Later on she decided to get similar knife for her friends's birthday, so asked me to get new one and rehandle it. Because I couldn't finish rehandle on time for birthday, she decided to gift our knife (since it was already rehandled and looked just like new) and keep the new one, so I could finish rehandling later. Well it took me almost 4 months to finish. There were failed attempts, several times I changed my mind about how I want it to be… but in the end I just used plain design and relied on Koa texture. Couldn't find mosaic pins in the hells mess on my balcony, so decided to make handle without any pins (not for the first time and it seems to work fine so far).

But nuff said, here are some pictures:







Love the the little bit spalted sap wood part. Blade still needs to polished a bit, but the knife has already took its place in the kitchen.

 

Anton, your work is awesome man!

 

That's a beautiful piece of koa my friend! I think I got its twin brother, lol...with the spalted top side.

Hopefully I do it as much justice as you did here! GORGEOUS shaping brother. Seriously.

 

moar handles

Maple Burl from Burl Source. For some reasons I couldn't finish those with tru-oil to the level of finish that I wanted, so instead I decided to make matte wax finish.


This one uses some some plastic for ferrule that was given to me by XooMG. Has a really nice deep hazy texture in it.


Really nice texture on Maple




A bit of spalting

 

Wow, these really look good!

 

Would you mind explaining how you are making the tang slot in your handles?

 

Hi Mark, my method is to drill small pilot hole and then widen it with small files/rasps. And I do this before glueing parts together. But you'd better watch some of those great WIP threads below:
1) by Cris
2) by Mikey
3) by Pierre

 

So do you slot a dowel with a table saw before you assemble the parts and then only have to rasp out a small amount of wood in the ferrule?

 

Short answer: yes.
Long answer below:
1) With large drilling bit (10-12mm) make a deep hole in the handle's body;
2) Use same drilling bit to drill a hole in the bottom of ferrule. The deep of hole is about half of ferrule height.
3) Cut a dowel into halves using band saw.
4) Drill a pilot hole on top of ferrule.
5) Use rasps to enlarge pilot hole in the ferrule to actual size of the tang
6) Insert halves of dowel into body and ferrule
7) Test that blade fits into handle with the dowel inside.
8) If something isn't ok — use rasps. Otherwise glue everything and proceed with shaping.