yet another one

I'm the owner of two handles with banksia spacers (the bog oak one and a gidgee one, from Anton). I think the material shows a lot of promise, but there's some inconsistency in the quality of material, and it probably needs a bit of time to determine if it's reliable. At least one facet of a spacer has fogged over and may need repolishing, though I don't know if that's from reaction to fumes or what.

Still, it's cool stuff when the right piece with the right look is found. Hope Anton keeps working with it to really master it.

 

I don't think you have any idea how much that means. I LOVE, love, love sharing my knowledge and experiences with others. Paying forward the knowledge and experiences that were freely shared with me. To see that someone took what I shared and used it to create things of such beauty is incredibly rewarding! I am truly honored my friend!

 

That is one beautiful handle. Love the simplicity and the middle piece.

 

OK, it's been a while since I posted anything new. Last time I posted two pictures with some mystical pen blanks material and now I have one finished handle with ferrule made from that stuff. Here are few pictures:


A hazy galaxy on one side

and a lot of weird stuff on the other


But what's really weird is that some of those inclusions will glow in the dark. Pretty unusual stuff.

 

Very cool. Some astronomy going on in that ferrule and you know how I love that gidgee you got.

 

Really like that with the 'galaxy' and 'weird stuff' on it:cool1

 

That makes for a cool ferrule indeed!

 

Wow, very nice handles Anton!

 

+1

 

Very nice!!!!! Those are some lookers!

 

I have been reading your handle threads with much interest and believe I have the general construction down. I have no interest in making a business out of handles, but do want the ability to experiment with different designs and handle my own collection. I currently have a mix of western and wa handles, so my question is what type of equipment makes the most sense for what I want to do.

It looks like I need a tabletop band saw, a tabletop drill press, and a decent disk sander at a minimum or perhaps a belt sander.

I don't mind spending the money for quality tools as I am sure I will learn to use them for other interest as well.


Does anyone have any advice on bench tools? Also where are you getting the small rasp...I think I want to rasp out my tang slots and epoxy the handles vs burning them

 

Mark, your question depends on many factors. My setup is the following:
1) 12" disk sander. And a lot of sandpaper for it.
2) A drill press. Don't repeat my mistakes and don't get cheap ones. While they would also work, instead of drilling wood, they will burn your nerve cells. So get a decent drilling press and drilling bits.
3) A band saw. I was on heaven when I bought this machine. It makes cutting wood sooooo much faster. Like a 10x times boost in production.
4) Hand tools, including different rasps (affordable and cool), knife, rulers, hammers, tons of sandpaper

Additional stuff that I'd like to get one day:
— Some dust collection system would be super cool. Vacuum cleaner is just a poor solution (and isn't a solution at all to be honest).
— Grinder. Sometimes I change profiles of knives and it requires a ton of manual work that could be done 10x faster with grinder.
— More rasps from Liogier as they are purely awesome and a joy to work with. I use rasps when I shape western handles.

Check other makers as some of them prefer using other tools.