Re-handled knife

[gb6491]

An old friend of mine is in town for the winter and was asking when I was going to start making knives again. I've really been much more interested in shooting since moving back to Arizona, so I suggested he try his hand at it using my tools. I would help him along as needed (kind of the blind leading the blind). He was hesitant to do that; so I countered with "How about re-handling something?" He was game for this and I had just the candidate. I purchased a Japanese made knife off eBay several years ago and the handle was broken during the move here. So, armed with that, some elk and brass he set to work. He got his feet wet on the grinder by reducing the blade to lengthen the tang and I think he put together a pretty nice knife:

Regards,
Greg

 

[The Tourist]

Very nice.

From the looks of the photo, and your description of the blade as Japanese, it might be what is called "blue steel." (That doesn't mean blue colored steel, it comes from the tradition of wrapping that knife in blue paper. It could actually be white steel, ergo, a white wrapper.)

That's a long-winded way of saying the thing will cut like a rabid chainsaw. Nice scoop. You'll love it.

 

[hso]

Nice looking piece.

Did he retain the temper near the guard or did it heat enough on the grinder to go soft in that area?

 

[gb6491]

Thanks for the comments! - I'll pass them along to him.

Did he retain the temper near the guard or did it heat enough on the grinder to go soft in that area?

He did the grinding bare handed (we did tape off the blade with masking tape) with a fresh belt. When it started to get hot near that area, he dunked it some water. Afterward, we stuck it in some more water, up to the new blade tang transition, and painted it with a torch to draw some of the temper there and mitigate any stress the grinding may have caused.

Regards,
Greg

 

[Valkman]

Looks pretty nice to me!