Finish and Polish for Knives

I am doing a quickie kitchen job and I want solid brass drawer pulls but not that shinny 80s polished brass look. I have located the drawer pulls I want, they are cast brass and polished. They don't have that ugly laquer finish. What I would like to do is dull the polished finish and let use polish them over time as it will. Anyone have any experience doing something like this? Thanks

I am working on my first folder, a friction folder. I want to use thin copper under the zebrawood scales to add a little support. I fit, sanded with 220, and used my normal slow-set epoxy to join the copper and wood. 48 hours later I tested the join and the copper fell right on off. Must I use thicker copper that will be held in place by the screws or is there something that will bond the copper and wood? Thanks, Dave

I need a non reflective non shiny finish. I'm making a Stealth knife. No shine sheath scales and blade. Not necessarily all black. Just zero gloss. Thanks, Phillip

I've read people taking about epoxy empregnated cord handles. I want to try it out. However I just have a couple questions. What cordage works well for this? Is paracord good for this? If not what is? What kind of epoxy do you use? A single stage slow drying would be nice, but may not be best. Lastly, what method of impregnation do you use? Literally soak it in epoxy or what? Thanks! Yous da cooliest.

Has anyone used Tru Oil on their handles and if so, how does it hold up? thanks, john

I'm sure we all throw billets in a drawer that we think we'll get back to later. This is one of them for me. Since my assistant is leaving in 2 weeks, I thought it may be a good time to get something out the door if possible. So, here it is. The handle is tulip wood and ebony. Unfortunately, the photo does not show how pretty the tulip wood is. Comments/critique welcome. Thanks for looking. John

Hello to All, I have several hidden tang blades that I need to drill/file out for the tang. Can anyone recommend a good set of small files or rasps to enlarge the opening? Thanks, John

Whenever I grind a knife I remove the scale and profile it with an 80 grit belt (the guard/casing on my craftsman 2x42 is to tight to put on a 40 grit belt) then sand at alternating angles with 120 and 240 grit belts, getting rid of all the previous scratches etc. After that when I go to hand sand it I have always found that if I try to use 220 or 320 grit paper it a lot of time and paper seems to do little so I have been doing the first step of hand sanding with 100 or 150 grit paper. Even when I use a fairly coarse grit the first grit after machine sanding always takes as long or longer than all the other grits up to 600. I was wondering if that is just the way i…

Can elk and/or deer horn be too old to use for knife handles? I have a good selection I was rummaging through yesterday and came across some elk horn that is quite old (24 years) and bleached white due to being stored outside for a time. For the past five years or so it's been in the barn. Still good to use or no?

I have been working on this one on and off for a bit but I finally got it to the point it needs handled. The one pictured just doesnt feel right for this blade, I am looking for suggestions.

Is it possible to somewhat manipulate the shape of horn by boiling in water to soften them? Thanks, John

Hey yall, Got a question. I am wanting to get more into knife and sword making, but I am missing a tool, a belt grinder. I know I can do with out one, but personally I would rather not waste my time hand sanding a blade. Now with building a house, my budget is limited, so I was wondering if I could use one of these http://www.amazon.com/PORTER-CABLE-Bench-Belt-Sander-PCB420SA/dp/B004Q0MXZU/ref=sr_1_12?ie=UTF8&qid=1358567541&sr=8-12&keywords=porter+cable+belt+sander for a belt grinder for the time being. 2 of my sisters gave me Lowes gift cards, so if this will work, I can use those cards to help purchase this sander. I know I would eventually …

Only have a cheap ryobi grinder, finest belt I can get for it is 120 grit. Wondering if that is a good finish for a working knife or what is the minimum you would use personally. Leaf spring blade. 1400mm long blade, 1200mm handle. Blade at widest is over 30mm, 5mm thick near guard tapering to 1.2-3mm near tip. High carbon guard, will have leather handle, maybe mild steel spacer(1-2 give your opinion) and mild steel but cap when I get some new stock tomorrow.(need thicker mild steel).

Where are you folks buying your Norton Blaze belts [assuming you even use them!]? Thanks, Dave

I've got a couple of kitchen knives in the works, and I've been thinking about the finished product and how it will interact with the acids in food. The blade is not made of stainless, so I was thinking that the acids might mark the blades. Would this happen? And if so is there anyway of protecting the steel from these effects? Many thanks in advance.

I done think anyone uses fish bones and deer hoof glue anymore. I just want to know what your personal favorite is.

As I have started making knives again, and looking at my supply of grip material [ various hard woods and antler ] I decided to try my hand at stabilizing. After watching several videos I went with the hand vac pump method. I cannot say that I was impressed with the results. The wood used was very light in color and the elk antler, after cleaning, was pretty light. I could not find any Min Wax wood hardener so I went with the Min Wax poly with a light oak color. After roughing the scales to size and cleaning the antler, into the vac chamber. After 1 1/2 hours the bubbling quit and I removed the material. Wiped down and let dry on a rack. Let dry for two days. It i…

Hey guys, I've just completed forging my first knife today using some flatbar i bought at a local hardware store. Everything turned out great except for that while I was sanding it and polishing it up a little bit, there were deep pits in the blade. I know this is why I should sand and polish the blade, but after close to 2 hours of working with a electric hand sander with a very course grit, I still had the pit marks. I thought it was from the hammer strikes during forging, but these pits seem too small in area to have been caused by my hammer. So my question is does anybody know what these are, and if so how to prevent them in the future? Any advice is grea…

Here is some mosaic pinstock I made the other night. Lanyard stock and welding rods with a pinch of black leather dye added to the epoxy.

I have never tried to make a leather knife handle. Does anyone know or have an opinion on how to compress the leather tight enough to be solid, like on a k-bar.

I'm looking for some information on how to get that multicoloured pattern on knives and swords, im thinking about attempting to get that pattern on a decorative sword i recently made and will post picture of it when im done can anyone tell me how this is done or direct me to some posts showing or explaining how it's done?

Not sure if this is the right category to post this in, let me know if there's a better place and I'll move it. I'm in the process of restoring some old straight razors and in the process of removing the pins from the original scales I broke them. They were already cracked so it wasn't a big loss, but now I have to make new scales for it. I'm not sure if any of you have any experience in this, but scale making and handle making are similar so I thought I'd throw it out there. I went out today to my local lumber yards trying to see what kind of wood I could source locally and the only thing I could come up with was some CA black walnut that the guy at the hardwood spec…

I've searched the threads and can't find an answer to my question. I've started to make knives from rr spikes, but i can't figure out how to put the nice mirror or even satiny finish on the twisted handle that i have seen in pictures and on youtube. i was wondering if anyone could tell me how to accomplish this. I was thinking about possibly putting them into a rock tumbler and see how that works. any advice would be hugely appreciated. thanks.

Lots of good stuff on here but. I want to know your favorite techniques for getting those pesky scratches off. I use a buffing wheel. Well I use 3 buffing wheels with 3 different grit. Washing all of the old grit off before using the next wheel. I keep them in seperate Tupperware containers. I have never tried steel wool. Anyone here a steel wool fan?

Have just made a hidden tang knife from an old file, cut up an old leather belt that didn't fit anymore. Good shape now but how do you polish it up all nice and that as mine looks a bit worn and all at parts. Has a shaped mild steel cap with bit of copper on the end, mad a guard to stop the leather out of a piece of the file I had hot punched.