Making a Knife, Part III

Made a bit of progress this weekend. Had other projects going on too, but I managed to get the bolsters attached. I countersunk the outer holes with a slightly larger bit, then cleaned all the surfaces and put the bolsters on with a thin layer of epoxy between them and the knife body, pins in place, clamped up and let that harden. Then  cut off the pins and used a jewelers cross-peen hammer to mushroom them down into the countersunk recesses.

I was super happy with how this came out. I’d actually done several test runs on a spare piece of brass, with different amounts of countersinking and different lengths of pin sticking out. They all turned out abysmally. I’m not sure why I felt the real deal might go ok, but it did, 4 for 4.

Then I followed this up with some sanding. This took off the high points of the pins and in a perfect world you wouldn’t be able to see the pins at all. Mine’s not perfect, but damn close for a first attempt. I’ll take it.

Next task is to make the handles. I’ve got some beautiful spalted maple that’s been sitting around for months waiting to be used for something special. I think it’s found its new home.