I didn't have the tools I wanted to attempt proper handles, so to date outside of a twisted railroad spike "handle" I hadn't actually finished any of my experiments. Santa brought me a small bench top bandsaw and an 8" drill press, so I was finally able to have a go at making a handle. This tanto is the first thing I attempted that wasn't a railroad spike. I started this one back in August. It started life as a bashed lawnmower blade that had run over a steel cable. I messed it up many times over and gave up on it more than once before eventually deciding to go back and try to correct the mistake. After making a mess of it trying out sharpening, I had relegated it to being a box cutter. It held up to all of the Xmas boxes (my wife orders EVERYTHING on Amazon) and cutting all of the kid's toys out of annoying packaging, so I decided it deserved a chance at a handle. I did my best to imitate Japanese techniques from lots of YouTube watching. Bevel is forged in (correcting the curve each time to leave only slight curve), tapered blade and tang, spine was clayed during HT, handle is a piece of bamboo floor sample that has been chiseled out for the tang, the pin is a bamboo food skewer. I finished the handle with a light hit of golden stain to bring out the grain. Some lessons learned that are probably obvious to most, but in case they help someone else just starting:

• When I attempted to etch for a hamon, what my etch actually revealed was my poor grinding. Lesson learned is to make sure you have a good smooth surface before etching. I had to regrind the blade to take the etch off then smooth it from there (I didn't dare try etching again after that because it was getting thin).
• When I attempted sharpening, I used a sharpening guide for my grinder. The guide had a nasty bur on it that scratched the blade badly. Lesson learned is to either learn to freehand the proper angle or at least be smart enough to check your tooling for burs etc. before using  I had to regrind the blade again to get the scratches out. It's now much thinner than I had planned, so I didn't take the grind all the way to where I would like to avoid grinding to nothing.
• I rounded the tang during grinding. This made life harder than it needed to be when chiseling out the handle. Next time I try this style handle I will keep all the edges on the tang straight.
• When chiseling out the handle I had a few strips want to split past where I wanted. On the second half I "scored" the line I wanted the chisel to follow, this helped. I think next time forging/grinding the tang a little smaller in comparison to target handle size would give more margin of error as well.

Here are some pics of the evolution:

looks better than most first attempts.  Keep at it

I agree with Lil Stevie...not bad at all for s first attempt...

JPH

When Steve and JPH talk people should  listen. Good first knife.

not half bad for a firsty. keep it up and you will make quite the knifemaker.

Looks like you took your time with it. Something most people don't do with their first attempts. And something that is very important in knife making. Great job!

                                                                                                                      Littleblacksmith

Thank you all for the kind words of encouragement. I have a lot to learn, but I'm enjoying doing so. I'm glad I found this place to help me along the journey (and be a source of inspiration looking at the work of others).

That is a nice knife. Especially with a mirror finish. GOOD JOB.