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I Forge Iron

my first knife


hounddog

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I like the shape of the blade. It has that 18th century "trade knife" vibe.

Round over all of the edges on your handle, maybe carve a little curl where the "bird's head" comes around. A couple pins would look good; I like steel (finish nails). Several rubbed coats of tung oil or linseed will make that walnut look really good.

Keep up the good work,

Don

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I like it for a first, too. Its good for any really. You should round the handles over and then take sandpaper (I use 2, 4, and 600). first polish to within an inch of its life vertically with each one, and then repeat same cruel sanding using the "shoe shine" method. Take a 2 inch wide strip of sand paper as long as you can get (about 11 inches if you have sheets). Fold strip in half for strength, and now shoe shine away by pulling the length of the strip back and forth horizontally across the kinfe handle (with knife sticking straight up and down and paper wrapped around half of handle in a U shape). When one side of paper loads, flip the strip.

So, 200 up and down, 200 round and round... 400, " ", 600 " ". Then, rub well with finest steel wool you can get. Finally, rub with linseed oil, let sit about 5 with excess oil and then rub in vigorously. Then, slather lot of linseed oil on and let sit over an hour, rub vigorously, repeat several times, only increasing the time interval of the soak before rubbing each time. The heat from friction and rubbing with soft cloth is supposed to help linseed oil polymerize inside wood and form protective barrier. If you rasp, file, or belt sand the edges off of the handle and then give the finish treatment I described, you get a "traditional" finish. Also, it is MAGIC, one of the most enjoyable moments in knifemaking is the first time you put linseed oil on a freshly sanded handle. You won't know the true beauty of the wood until this moment, and then it jumps out.

Kevin

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Kevin the pro.. has a great suggestion. Needless to say to be careful when working on a sharp blade. You may wish to make yourself a knife-vise such as this one that I made, as shown below. It allows you to work on a knife or blade safely at just about any angle.

Yes, I have already been accused of spending too much time making tools. :D

16744.attach

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