28 February 2010

Disaster and Redemption



Next weekend sees the YOKB event at Sittingbourne. For those not privy to this sort of information, it's another gathering of UKWorkshop nutters, this time at a professional 'shop in Kent. As part of event, there's going to be a raffle in aid of the Woodland Trust and I offered to make a 'Blokeblade' as one of the prizes.

As can be seen from the first pic, all proceeded well until I came to the bit where the blade and supporting side pieces were offered up to the handle...and then it broke! The reason was fairly simple...the epoxy glue used was too cold (hence thick) and the action of trying to assemble all three bits into the handle was sadly, too much.

This was a bit of a setback as I only had that once piece of Lace She Oak left, so I had to have a rummage around and came up with a suitable piece of Indonesian Rosewood.

The next evening I made another handle which hasn't turned out too badly and I finished off the knife this morning. After the unmitigated disaster of the previous handle, this one's turned out quite well...

3 comments:

Alfred Kraemer said...

I had a similar experience with Lace She Oak about a year ago. I thought it would make a nice chisel handle but soon realized that it wasn't the right kind of wood for that purpose. It seems it can break in any direction. The chisel handle broke soon, leaving a cone in the socket handle.
Alfred

Kari Hultman said...

Sorry about the mishap. I love the rosewood one--the decorative finial on the end is a nice touch.

Quin said...

Really beautiful end result!
Did you make or buy the ferrule parts? The rounded supports (no idea what right word is for them) for the blade are a particularly nice touch. Only ever seen something like them on a couple commercial offerings.