The lowly paring knife. Not a glamorous blade, but a useful one.

My Mom wanted a new handle on her favorite paring knife from the knife scales my son has been making. But while my son and I were removing the old handles, the blade broke!

So I grabbed some 15N20 and cut out another blade to match the old, heat treated it, tempered it, ground the bevel and we were back in business.

My son made some simple mosaic pins. We attached the scales. Just need to do the final sharpening.

Hopefully my Mom will be happy with it and won't miss her favorite paring knife.

6 hours ago, John in Oly, WA said:

Not a glamorous blade, but a useful one.

That is the best type of knife. At the end of the day, knives are tools. Tools require pragmatism over all else. Ive made some blades that were decent looking (lets be honest, they were pretty bad!) but they performed flawlessly and effectively. What more can be asked?

You did well, i like it. Excellent choice in handle material, i love the pattern in the wood. And the mosaic pins look great. Your son should be proud. 

I have a feeling your mother will soon have a new favorite paring knife. 

Thanks Will. I'm a function over form kind of guy myself as well. If the tool doesn't function well, then the form won't appeal to me no matter how much effort was put into the form. And a tool that does function superbly, has a certain beauty to it regardless if any effort was made as to the form.

I am a form fallows function kind of guy myself...

You can still TIG weld the old one back together. 

Hail fallow well met!

BigGun, that's my fall back if the new knife doesn't pass muster, with one small caveat - I don't know how to TIG weld - and I don't have the equipment. I have a MIG welder (Lincoln 135Plus) and I have an Everlast PowerARC 200ST 200amp TIG/Stick welder, but don't have the TIG set up for it.

Maybe find someone who does and have it TIG welded.

You do not have to buy a TIG set-up for one job. If worse comes to worse you can farm that welding job out to a professional welder.

It's a one-off kind a thing.

SLAG.

 

Slag---that's just crazy talk!  Of course he needs to buy another tool and get training in it!  It's the way it's done around these parts!

T. P.,

Gotchya, Guvnah.

SLAG.

A positive note here is I believe; you may have saved your mom or someone else from a dreadful accident in the future from using that old broken blade.

Failure mode probably wouldn't be that bad based on use and break point.  Shoot I broke a table knife spreading butter last week when my furnace wasn't working.  I was amused rather than anything else.

17 hours ago, ThomasPowers said:

Slag---that's just crazy talk!

That is! Hey, ANY excuse to buy another tool is just good operating procedure. My Dad's wise teaching - every project should include acquisition of a new tool.

TommyTapTap - I will keep that excellent line of reasoning in my pocket in case my Mom pines for her old favorite paring knife. It was right on the verge of catastrophic failure! Who knows what could have happened!