I made some knives, and gave them to my groomsdudes as thank you gifts. The handles are made from Monterey Cypress, a rare wood that only grows where I grew up. Also, the wood in the knife handles is from the same tree that is the wood in my wedding ring. And, that wood comes from the same tree that is used as a slab in my dad’s fireplace mantle.
I presented the knives knives in little photo boxes with bottles of booze, candy, a hand typed note from a vintage type writer cause why not, and of course some facial products to help everyone look pretty.
The broad steps to do this are pretty simple.
- Rough cut the wood
- Glue (Drill if needed)
- Shape and Sand
- Finish
I’ll walk you through each step and then below you can find out about my build.
Cut the Wood
You should start with either Knife Scales, which are great since they’re already at the right size and often already matching pairs, or you can cut any wood down to 1/4″ wide strips on a table saw. Be careful, table saws are scary.
Then, place your scales on the blade handle where you’d like them to go, and trace an outline around handle. This doesn’t have to be perfect. If there any defects in the wood like knots that might cause tear out. Be careful to not put those right on the edge of where the handle will be. Also consider if you’ll put any handle pins in the handle, and if you like where those would go.
After you’ve got your outline for both scales on both sides of the handle, take it over to the band saw and cut around the outline. It’s important to get close to the to outline, but not too close. If you go in to where the handle is it’s gonna be hard to finish, or you might even ruin the wood. If you go to far, it can be a lot of sanding. But you can always cut more off if you’re too far away.
Optional Step: Use a Wood Hardener Here
I used wood hardener here to hopefully strengthen the wood and make it a little bit more durable for use. For some woods this would be silly, for others it makes sense. Use your best judgement.
Glue
Glued the freshly cut scales to the knife handle where you outlined using 5 minute epoxy. Put a clamp or two on the scales to bind it to the knife handle. Make sure you work quickly and place the wood correctly on the knife handle. Sometimes putting the clamps on will move it slightly, so take extra care because once it’s hardened, there’s no going back.
Shape and Sand
Now, depending on how you want your knife handle to look and feel you’ll need to shape and sand it.
I recommend using an oscillating sander for a first pass to get the shape mostly right.
Then, use some hand sanding to get the finer shape it’s harder to get on an oscillating sander.
Depending on your finish sand down as far as needed. I went down to 3000 grit at first (details below), but that was not needed as I finished with poly. Still it felt and smelled nice to sand it all the way down. Wood is beautiful…
Finish
I tried a LOT of different finishes to decide which one I wanted.
From top left clockwise: Shellac, Danish Oil, Boiled Linseed Oil, Tung Oil, Polyurethane, Paste Wax.
You need to decide which finish is right for you, and there’s tons more options out there. I’d test a few and see what you like the most.
For me, I ultimately decided, I really liked the color of the wood and wanted to keep it as natural as possible so I went with Poly.
I wiped on layers, did light wet sanding in between each layer, and kept applying poly. I think I did about 5 coats, and on the last one very gently sanded up to 1500 grit or so. Then I buffed with paste wax.
Admire Your Work
Nothing like finishing a job. Take a second to admire your work, regardless of flaws or imperfections. It’s great to make and finish something. Congrats!
And now a lot of words about how I made all mine, errors and all:
Originally the handles were gonna be out of desert ironwood. And so I got some of that started cutting it up, and it split everywhere. I guess it was green. Which sucked. Also, Ironwood did NOT stick at all with 5 minute epoxy, I needed something much stronger.. I was Then I realized I had some more “significant” wood, so went with the cypress.
I had already cut down a bunch of long 1/4″ strips of it for my next project (maybe I’ll post that one day), and I just cut those up into the size of the knife handles on my table saw.
Taped up the blades of the knife handle with masking tape so I wouldn’t get cut working with them.
Next, I outlined the knife handle on the wood. Took it over to the band saw, and then cut off all the excess around the outline, giving just a tiny bit of room for sanding. Then, glued the freshly cut scales to the blanks using 5 minute epoxy.
Sanded on my oscillating sander all the excess, and spent a good amount of time shaping them how I wanted. This is where things started to get a little wonky. Like for one, when you’re sanding the wood, sometimes you’re hitting the metal of the blank. Actually, you’re doing it a lot… this isn’t a huge deal on the sides, but toward the top, near the blade, it kind of ruins the finish of the stainless. Press forward… I can fix it…
Then, I soak the wood with Minwax wood hardener. I like to imagine this makes it a little more durable for use, but probably not? So now the rough sanding is done, and I decide to do fine sanding. This is where mistake #2 comes in. I sand a bunch of the blanks down to 3000 grit. They feel and look and smell beautiful. At the same time I was trying to decide how I was going to finish, I tested a bunch of options, BLO, Poly, Tung, couple others. Ultimately decided poly. Now if you know poly, all that fine sanding work, basically doesn’t matter because the first layer of poly is gonna be rough. But, whatever it smelled and felt nice to go all the way down to 3000.
So, damn. Layer them all in poly, 5 layers. Very gentle wet sanding between a few layers. Then I buffed with paste wax.
Then, I was trying to figure out how to remove some of the oscillating sander gouges in the steel. I tried buffing them out, no luck there. So I just used what sand paper I had, started at 400 grit, worked down to 3000. Then buffed. Much better, but still imperfect. Then I had to give them away. But, I love them and am proud of them.
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