New here, new to knife making, and have a question

R

REDFISHIN

Active Member
Hello all. I am new to knife making and am trying to learn as much as possible. I have started shaping my handles on my first couple of knives and have been trying to figure out what is the best way to finish the handles. I am starting out using mostly hand tools for everything. I know that I will get varied responses, but I have not had a whole lot of luck finding out how to and what to use to finish the handles. I am using wood for the handles and at this time don't have a buffer. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks
 
Back when I started, and only had hand tools to work with, I used files and "surform" type files to remove the larger amounts of handle material. as I got closer to finished dimensions, I would switch to sandpaper in the grades that Delbert mentioned. If you don't own a buffer, #0000 steel wood can be a very nice finish once you finished up with your finest grade of sandpaper.

Handle finishes are another topic. I personally do not like or recommend things like Danish Oil or Polyurethane. They often leave a finish that look "cheap" or "plastic" to me. I will say that I do like Birchwood Casey Tru-Oil, as long as the time is taken to apply and finish it correctly.
 
For simplicity, I apply one coat of tung oil to a smoothly sanded wood handle and leave it for 24 hours. I then put on 3 very light coats of oil-based satin polyurethane, one each day, sanding with 400 grit wet/dry paper after each coat has dried. At the end, I buff with an old t-shirt.

For my tastes, this has resulted in a finish that has a bit of luster and is basically waterproof. If I were to put on more coats of poly, or if they were really thick, I suppose I might wind up with an unpleasant plastic look, but what I have looks pretty good to me.

For what it's worth, I make my knives to be used out in the woods. If I were interested in making pristine showpieces that would never see dirt, blood or pine sap, I might have to change my finishing techniques, but what I have done has held up pretty well so far.
 
What I have noticed is one system usually does not work on all wood.
What I mean is not all wood should be sanded to a certain grit or finished with a certain product. The fun is deciding what looks the best on that particular wood.Research the wood your using. I swore i would not use super glue finish again but the last knife I finished didnt look right with anything I tried so tried superglue on it and it looked amazing. If you try super glue you must commit because it is a nightmare to totally remove.:eek:

I will just list some stuff to try .
Danish oil
wood wax
True oil.
super glue
Minwax polyurethane wipe on.

This is not the greatest list and would like to hear more finishes if anybody has some to add.
 
I have to agree with Shank. Some woods are rather porous and need to be sealed. Others like the rose woods, African blackwood, lignum vitia, and the like are so dense and oily all you need to do is to sand it fine and buff. No oils or waxes needed. Something like osage orange is not particularly oily but it is real dense and stable and might take a light coat of something after fine sanding. Desert ironwood probably falls into this catagory too. Of course, if the wood has been stabilized all one needs to do is sand and buff also.

Doug Lester
 
Thank y'all for your responses and ideas so far. I picked up a couple different finishes to try. Some of the woods that I am using are lacewood, cocobolo, bocote, mesquite, walnut, and ebony. I also picked up a buffing kit that attaches to a drill, hopefully that will get me started for now. Now I guess I will experiment. :eek::D Any more info is always appreciated. Once again thanks.
 
Red, that's my kind of buffer! I can't compare it with a purpose built buffer but it has served me well. The arbours are cheap enough that I can put one on each of the buffeing wheels for the different compounds. It's a good idea to mark the buffing wheel with a majic marker to designate it for a given buffing compound.

Doug Lester
 
I went through the whole wood finishing product routes and finally settled on having all my wood stabilized. Stabilized wood ends problems with finish and takes guesswork and wasted money out to the equasion. It isn't cheap but the assurance is worth it when worrying about a finish that may last over the years for a user knife.
 
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