Giving up on wa handles

Yea, Mert...... tear you off a peace of that wa handle!!! The two above look frickin' awesome! Well done.

 

Can I apprentice with you?

 

Thank you for your positive feedback guys , I am happy with those too, the blackwood one is going for a custom 270mm workhorse and the gidgee will be for the 240 I forged at my friends workshop

 

Ha ha ha , you mean apprentice for cooking right ?

 

A router mounted on a routing table with a 45 deg bit is your best friend to turn rectangular into octagonal, but this means metal spacer is a no no. I personally find making the taper is a much harder thing to do it right. I used to clamp the work piece right and use a mitersaw to cut out the taper but it is not the best way.

 

when i do oct. handles i make sure things are as close to square first that way all i have to do is knock the corners off. before i was better at looking and deciding angles i marked them out first then ground to the lines. as for taperig then make slightly smaller set of lined on the front of the handle and start grinding from there. if you use the marks and take your time it shouldl go well. as for keeping things flat a sheet of 100 grit paper on a smooth flat surface is great

 

I build the taper prior to shaping the wa. Then I just set the disk table to 45 and use varing pressure and calipers to keep the lines consistent.

Still have not figured out the "d" yet.....

 

Thank you again for all of your answers , I do appreciate the help , I will be giving another go at octagonals soon with better approach using what I learned in this thread with hopefully better tools

 

I just saw this thread for the first time Mert, lol. I'd probably somehow manage to kill myself if I used a disc sander for anything but helping me get my blank square lol. Honestly though...I don't even use that anymore. They're all made on my flat platen. Scribing the lines on the butt and ferrule makes them as close to perfect as they're going to get for me, every time. Knock on wood, but I've never had a failed handle yet, either in making, or in customer use.

 

It's all good Chris , I made peace with wa handles now