I am cheating by not making the blades themselves, just the handles. Here's the first one, so far, for my future brother-in-law:
I've just used my little 1x42 belt grinder on it and a 100 grit belt. All my 2x72 inch belts broke. Usually after about five seconds. I bought a bunch a few years ago and haven't really used them, and that annoys me that I wasted that money, but I should've been grinding on knives and not just had them hanging on the wall. I should get a few belts in this week and then I'll start working on the knife with the finer grits.
I'm thinking of adding that black spacer at the end to balance it out a little bit more. Everything forward of that last black spacer is epoxied together. The spacer and the buttcap and the nut are not epoxied on yet. Still trying to figure out what to do there.
The white material just after the guard is a fake pearl material. I don't remember what the wood is that I used in the middle. Maybe walnut? I may try teak next as I have a few pieces from a deck lying around.
Some more pictures are here.
I'm making another leather washer handled knife for my current brother-in-law. I think on his the wood and brass will be shifted one washer towards the front of the knife. I thought having the same amount of leather washers on each side would be better, but seeing it now I think not.
After the next leather washer knife comes a kukri, and then a folder. Still deciding what folder to assemble. Well, and instead of the kukri it might be a sword. Dunno. I have a couple of German made handle-less swords. The best man said he wanted a sword, but I know it'll bug his wife if I make him one. So really, I should assemble him a sword
So last weekend I went estate sale shopping to find something to re-handle. I've been looking for a while but had not run across any cake/pie servers. It was funny, every sale I went to had a cake server and each was better than the last, so I ended up buying four or five (for like $1 each). The first place had a cake server and knife set (made in china) with snowman handles. I figured I could remove them and put something nice on in their place. The second place had a set from Amway with fake antler handles, which looked a lot nicer than the snowmen, so I got that. The next place had two mismatched, but silver-plated servers which looked pretty good, so I got them. The last sale, though, had a beautiful silver server with matching fork, and they both had pearl handles. So I got that and I'm not messing with them!
Atlanta Cutlery has some pretty good stuff. I've bought several blades from them over the years.
