Damascus steel chopping knives

[Ken Vick]

This is the third year that an artist friend and want-to-be woodworker has collaborated with me on a Christmas gift project.  The first year was cutting boards, last year was the Woodsmith knife holders with skewers and this year we are making six Damascus steel kitchen chopping knives and one paring knife.  Marolyn will take 3 of the chopping knives for gifts for her sons and I will keep the other four, two for gifts and two to keep.  The steel knife blanks come from Alabama Damascus Steel Company and are 9" long including the handle.  The scales are Padauk.  Here is a picture of the first one we finished. 





Thanks for looking.  Ken

[jteneyck]

Beautiful, Ken.  The rivets look great; how do they work?  Are they sold with the knife blade or from another company? 

Those knives are going to be well received.

John

[chips ahoy]

Wow,beautiful,I am jealous.

Mel

[Ken Vick]

Thanks, John and Chip.  The model knife I used is Alabama Damascus Steel #0079.  I am also using their #0071 as a paring knife.  The mosiac pins are from Jantz supply.  These come in 4 or 12" length and I used a dremel cut off wheel to cut them to the lengths I needed.  You are supposed to be able to make these yourself but I think it is beyond my meager talents.  Ken

[arw01]

after you cut them to size roughly on the rivet, did you just pound them flat and then sand down the handle blank?

[Ken Vick]

Hi, I cut the pins about a 1/4" longer than the thickness of the handle.  After glue up with epoxy, I have found that the best way to flush them up is with a 1/2" grinding drum in a dremel tool.  You would not want to hammer them because the pins are made of bronze, copper and resin and hammering on the end would probably destroy the fine detail that shows up in the finished handle.  BTW don't forget to use a backer board when drilling the holes in the scales to give nice crisp edges to the holes and prevent blowouts.  Another thing, the 1/4" and 3/16" pins were actually a few thousands larger than their nominal size and wouldn't fit into the pre-drilled holes in the tang.   After cutting them to size, I chucked them up in the drill press and used 150 grit sandpaper to bring them down to the required diameter.  Ken

[BrokenOlMarine]

Very nice.