# Christmas time is near, happiness and cheer :)



## milkbaby (Nov 13, 2017)

Since my sister saw the knife that I made and gave to my dad for Christmas last year, she's been bugging me for a knife. She wanted a little paring knife to use as a utility knife in the kitchen. She's basically one of those people who uses a little knife for everything in the kitchen, I think. 

I started with a left over offcut of 15N20 carbon steel and drew something on there that would work with the offcut of handle scales I had left over from another knife. I usually design a knife on paper first, but I wanted to kill two birds with one stone: use up scraps, make little sis a little knife. Waste not, want not.

https://i.Rule #2/Q3aHh08h.jpg



From the start this knife was a bit of an afterthought while I was working on other knives. In the pic below you can see the leftover handle scale offcuts. The design followed from the leftover materials.

https://i.Rule #2/wPg4syFh.jpg



Partial grind. Was pretty happy at that point that it was looking fairly clean and even. 

https://i.Rule #2/jlRl6VTh.jpg



Heat treated and tempered at the same time as a chef's knife that warped from the asymmetric grind, but the symmetric utility stayed straight.

https://i.Rule #2/TCXN2ZHh.jpg



Time for playing with wood and getting sticky fingers.

https://i.Rule #2/IEpIVd3h.jpg

https://i.Rule #2/Nl6adqHh.jpg



For handles, I like to wet sand in tung oil finish especially on natural woods. This is bocote and padauk. Padauk tends to have open grain/pores that do better filled. 

https://i.Rule #2/7CXP2v9h.jpg

https://i.Rule #2/NvaYTXkh.jpg



Pictured with the chef's knife I made simultaneously. That knife is one of the best I've made so far but the utility knife is kinda blah at this point, sort of an afterthought. It looked a bit crap, wasn't happy with the grind and finish at that point. 

https://i.Rule #2/psk8SwAh.jpg

https://i.Rule #2/Pmf8L00h.jpg

Reactions: Like 1 | Way Cool 7


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## milkbaby (Nov 13, 2017)

I delayed making a saya for a few months because how crap I felt about this knife. After taking this pic, I went back and redid the grind both going thinner and evening it out better. 

https://i.Rule #2/IkMxt9eh.jpg



Saya is chiseled out basswood, a great soft wood that's kind to the edge. I love it for sayas because it's a bit more durable than balsa but easier to chisel than pine. The one downside is that it's a bit boring, though I do find bits with cool figure occasionally. 

https://i.Rule #2/SnvDg2vh.jpg

https://i.Rule #2/L4kEHWih.jpg



Since basswood is boring, I fire distressed the saya pin and added some wood veneer and leather ornamentation on the saya.

https://i.Rule #2/EexRw8rh.jpg

https://i.Rule #2/p19zKH5h.jpg



I put some tung oil finish on the saya but got it on the dyed leather which promptly turned really dark, not even very red anymore. :(

https://i.Rule #2/2oVSyKEh.jpg



I kept trying to get an acceptable color out of the leather and thought I was happy with a really dark maroon after sanding and trying to refinish but then I saw the original color in the earlier pic and thought it was a shame to not have some red in there. I thought that I had some textured red scrapbook paper to use but couldn't find it. So I dry tested a strip of the original dyed leather and thought it looked nice. Voilá, fixed! :)

https://i.Rule #2/3E73TpNh.jpg



Also, I redid the belt finish because I almost always manage to leave some stone grit somewhere while sharpening or always cut through an onion root with dirt and scratch my knives. Pretty happy that I was able to turn around a project that I was originally unhappy with.

https://i.Rule #2/96cxK29h.jpg

Reactions: Like 3 | EyeCandy! 1 | Way Cool 11


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## Strider (Nov 13, 2017)

For a leftover knife, it surely turned out to be a freaking awesome gift! I bet it's a laser!

Reactions: Thank You! 1


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## barry richardson (Nov 13, 2017)

Great post, cool knife! thanks for the ride....

Reactions: Thank You! 1 | Agree 1


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## DKMD (Nov 13, 2017)

Too cool!

Reactions: Thank You! 1


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## ripjack13 (Nov 13, 2017)

Wow...great write up. Great pix. Great job. Nicely done. Is the knife in the first pic, top one, done yet? I like that look. What's the shape called?

Reactions: Thank You! 1


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## Eric Rorabaugh (Nov 13, 2017)

Beautiful knives!

Reactions: Thank You! 1


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## NYWoodturner (Nov 13, 2017)

Nicely done Marcus! Thats a great looking knife.

Reactions: Thank You! 1


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## Nature Man (Nov 13, 2017)

Very nice work! Love the wood combos! Chuck

Reactions: Thank You! 1 | Agree 1


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## milkbaby (Nov 13, 2017)

ripjack13 said:


> Wow...great write up. Great pix. Great job. Nicely done. Is the knife in the first pic, top one, done yet? I like that look. What's the shape called?



Thanks for the kind words and question, Marc! I think I'm pretty much done with the knife at the top of the first pic. It's my take on a Japanese vegetable cleaver called a nakiri. It's a thinner blade and not as tall as the typical kitchen cleaver, and my shape differs a bit from the traditional though very similar. When I designed it, the blade had a bit of a tanto tip, but as I worked on it, I didn't think grinding the tip like that would be very useful the way it's used in the kitchen. The shape is there, but it's not beveled and sharpened all the way around the front until it meets the spine.

I still need to make a saya for it. Might go over the bevel finish again to clean it up some as I got some scratches on it, and I will probably put another layer of paste wax on the handle when I get home tonight. Here's a pic, not very good due to the bad lighting.

https://i.Rule #2/xQIqHsch.jpg

Reactions: Like 1 | EyeCandy! 3 | Way Cool 1


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## ripjack13 (Nov 13, 2017)

Dooood.......

Reactions: Thank You! 1


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## NeilYeag (Nov 13, 2017)

Excellent write up as always.

Reactions: Thank You! 1


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