Chef knives and knife block

This one went down to the wire as I started it late. Got it finished today, just in time for Christmas tomorrow!

A couple of months ago I found three rather battered Sabatier chef knives - all minus their scales ...

This is how they looked when new ..

These are good quality knives and were not worthy of such an end to their lives.

I had this idea that I could bring them back to life. A little differently (of course - that's where the fun lies. These may be a Christmas gift, but the pleasure is partly in the making).

So I ground away the steel handles (avert your eyes if squeamish)...

Ground away the front bolster for a ferrule ..

.. and turned new handles out of Rock Oak. This wood has the most amazing fiddleback figure.

The handles were turned and fitted for the ferrules at the same time. Then I reversed the handles in the lathe and drilled a hole that would take the tang of the knife. This is standard procedure when adding a tang to a handle.

Poured in epoxy, slid in the tang, and hey presto! The rounded gaps (from a round hole) on the sides of the straight tang are supported by epoxy and are invisible under the ferrule.

This is the end result ...

I managed to get the knives done last Sunday. Today I built my first knife block out of Jarrah. The finish for both knives and knife block is a little buffing oil followed by Shellawax.

I just did not have the time for pictures. So I will describe a little. Basic stuff, I think.

The knife block is actually 5 pieces jointed together. Three were rectangular, and two were triangular (I am not sure if the pictures show it, but the block tapers down at both ends and curves across the top). Triangular pieces were glued between the straight sections. To get the mortices for the blades I simply ran three of the rectangular sides across the tablesaw. The kerf was perfect for the blades.

The block was shaped with hand planes, mainly a jack for removing waste fast, and then a smoother and scrapers to clean up. Block plane on end grain. Fun stuff

Thanks for sharing it with me.

Merry Christmas all!

Regards from Perth

Derek

24^th December 2009