knife making quesions

[44minimum]

A week ago I was in gatlinburg and stopped by the smoky mountain knife works to pick up some knife making supplies for my nephews and nieces. I let them pick out the blade Blanks and whatever handle material they wanted to use. Now that they are in the process of constructing their own knife, I have a couple of questions.

Three of the handles are laminated wood, one is cow bone and another is horn. After the laminated wood is ground down and sanded like we want it, the guy at the knife store said to squirt it with a coat of clear, wait for it to dry and then sand lightly with, I think he said 800 grit sandpaper. And then apply another coat of clear and sand lightly and repeat this process until we were happy with the result.

Question one. Do they even make 800 grit sandpaper? Or would steel wool work? Or do you have another suggestion for getting the finished product?

Question two. On the cow bone and the horn handle, after it is shaped like we want it should we also squirt it with a coat of clear or what?

[Hardcast416taylor]

When I made knives years ago I also used many different types of handle material. For the laminated Diamond wood I would just put an old buffing wheel on and use an odd piece of polish stick and polish the wood, looked like I had spent 4 days putting finish on. For stag or bone handles I never went beyond finish sanding with 5 or 600 grit and let my hand perspiration color the material from use.Robert

[Three-Fifty-Seven]

Auto parts store, or at least one like Napa that sells paint will have 800 grit and finer sand paper . . .

[44man]

0000 steel wool works. You are just filling the grain. Sandpaper just plugs up unless you use wet or dry, wet.
Bone and horn only needs sanded and polished.
Wood does buff nicely.

[rhead]

Automotive section of Wal Mart has 800, 1000, and 2000 grit paper. Most similar stores probably have the same.

[runfiverun]

before you do the clear coat, wipe the wood down with a wet cloth and let it dry. this will raise little hairs which you can then knock down with sand paper then stain or clearcoat.
for the bone i'd make sure and clean all the hand oils off, then clearcoat or put on a sealer.
or leave in the raw and let use, color and polish.

[Hardcast416taylor]

How do you think the mellow yellow color got into the ivory grips on the Colt pistols the "Duke" carried, perspiration and bodily oils mixed with gun oils and carried and handled for many years.Robert

[44minimum]

Thanks for the input guys

[onondaga]

I work with bone. I use Tripoli polishing compound on a buffing rag wheel after sanding. Tripoli will add some color to the bone too. But for a Paleo look after sanding I hand buff with powdered pumice on a wet rag then after drying thoroughly I rub the bone with bees wax and rub it in hard to warm the wax. then cool and buff with a towel. If the bees wax is a nice warm color it will give some color to the bone too.

[fryboy]

i like handles ( and hafts and ... ) as for the laminated wood it is phenolic impregnated so no finish is really required ( by finish i mean varnish, shellac etc ... ) it wouldnt soak in stain or finish if u tried .... the polish part tho will give it a sleek smooth look and fill , ditto for the bone but one caveat here , zam ....best stuff ever !!! it's actually a lite green color but it doesnt color the open pores like most other compounds ( white rouge is another but zam works better IMHO )

http://www.woodcraft.com/Product/2004244/9011/Zam-Buffing-Compound-4-Ounce.aspx
i sand down to 400 - 600 ( depending ) and then hit it with the zam on a clean wheel , bone and stag gleam like wet glass !!!
i like onondaga's tip on the beeswax it makes a great waterproofer and use it on my kitchen blade handles , warm the product that it's being applied too helps it soak in ( at least on non phenolic impregnated woods and materials )

[pmeisel]

44min, you will want to work up to 800 or 1000 --- don't know what grit you are doing your rough shaping with (80 maybe? or more?) --

If I am working with wood (in my case sailboat trim pieces) I use 80 for rough shape, then switch to 120 or 180 to smooth out the roughness, then maybe 240 or 320, then 400, 800, maybe 1000 or 1200 if I want it really smooth. Jumping from 80 to 240 or 400 leaves the scratches. Once you get past 320 or so you will notice its pretty smooth, but 800 or 1000 really smooths things out.

Haven't tried the really fine steel wool but the same principle applies. I have used the fine grades of Scotch Brite and prefer them to sandpaper, I usually keep some Scotch Brite around for those little spur of the moment jobs.

[Superfly]

Here are some Pics of a few knives my Father Makes http://good-times.webshots.com/album/558170785ZVHLqd


He uses Hornsand some bone, wood and some excotic stuff he does the leather work and shaping the blades.

What ya think.

Jaime

[fryboy]

Here are some Pics of a few knives m Father Makes http://good-times.webshots.com/album/558170785ZVHLqd

diggin' the train too ! nice !

[44minimum]

Yeah, some of them are really neat

[Superfly]

Dad spend about 400 hours on that train.

He bild anything people want or pretty much anything he feels like doing From knives to cremation Urns .