Project - Obachan's Knife

This little guy showed up in the mail a couple of days ago. A young man had posted about it at the B&B and explained how it was at least his grandmothers if not his great grandmothers. I of course offered to give it a lick.





He wanted the ability to use the knife without loosing all of its "heritage" or character.

There is very little left of the Ura but I think I can get the chips out except for the heel.

Any info on the maker or suggestions for where to start?

 

Spectacular, I cant wait to see how this turns out.

 

For the blade, you can soak it in Break Free CLP, but the tang makes me a bit nervous. How deep is the rust on that part?

For the handle, I'd just reuse the old one, but push the ferrule back on, and use a good epoxy. Before doing that, I'd sand the wood down, and get rid of the huge marks, while leaving some of the old ones. Then, a nice mineral oil soak, and light sanding, with a beeswax buff, and you should be good to go.

 

This is where I would need a popcorn eating smiley...

 

Here you go

 

Between sandpaper and a scotchbrite belt, I think I'd go with the belt for this blade. There already appear to be grind marks going from spine to edge, so you wouldn't be altering the personality of the blade. The belt could also do a lot for the rust on the tang, though I agree with Tom that you'll eventually want to put a chemical on there of some sort.

 

The tang looks worse than it is, pretty solid. I will wire brush it and retake some photos after the rough sanding.

 

Dremel makes a little paddle brush that works great and leaves less scratching than a wire brush.

 

It's says "???" "ten" "saku", where "ten" is the character for heaven, and "saku" is the character for made/work/design.

 

On looking closer the left side of the second character looks like it had a stroke lapped off maybe? If so it changes the meaning of that character. It could read "ya" meaning arrow.

 

Is that kanji down the side of the handle ?

 

Yes, very hard to make out.

Thanks Kent for the translation attempt.

 

I have the brass sleeve off the handle and have the handle glued up to stabilize the cracks I found under it.

 

Where's the beef?..I mean bacon. (And by that, I mean, "Pics, or didn't happen").

That's it - I plan on using, "Where's the Bacon?", instead of "pics or it didn't happen". I invite you all to do so, as well.

 

hoto

Here is the original thread- http://badgerandblade.com/vb/showthread.php/381330-Help-with-100-year-old-Deba?highlight=grandmother

 

Subscribed.

Nice work Jim.

 

Thanks Shawn.

 

Are you going to try and slightly refurb the sleeve, to get it back fully on the handle?

 

I may have to trim it down a little, there is a lot of damage at the top of that sleeve so I have to see how it goes when I get my itty bitty hammer out.

 

In for the updates!! This looks like it will be interesting! Love seeing the rehabs!