# Adventures in Saya Making



## ejd53

As some of you may remember, I started trying to make a saya for one of Devin's "spicy white steel" knives. After making it, I found that I was not satisfied and in typical fashion for me, proceeded to go off of the deep end and make a few more sayas (including a new one for Devin's knife. Thought I would show you how I'm progressing.

First, Devin's knife (original and replacement, both made of curly maple)



original


replacement

next, a couple of Del's knives (both in poplar)


Gyuto


Paring

A couple of Will's



Gyuto in Bloodwood



and a Nakiri in Paduk



A Marko Gyuto in Bubinga



HHH Gyuto in Yellowheart



Pierre Suji in Walnut



and a Pierre Petty in Cocobolo

I am currently working on a couple of others, which I hope to have done in a day or so. I have learned a lot of things doing this, primarily that I need to invest in a a band saw and a belt sander. Doing it by hand, while satisfying, is very slow.
Any comments on the work or on recommendations for power equipment would be welcome.:biggrin: I will add to this as I finish the others.


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## Baby Huey

Awesome work. Keep it up.


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## sachem allison

very nice!


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## Anton

Very nice. Any pics of the spines and coil area?


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## Dream Burls

Amazing that you can do such fine work by hand. Probably won't get much better with power tools, but it will go a lot faster. Keep up the good work.


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## NO ChoP!

Looking good my man! 

I use a cheap ryobi band saw and drill press, and am currently using an even cheaper 1x30 hf sander. I do plan on upgrading to a Kalamazoo 10" disc/ 2x48" belt combo soon...


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## Lefty

These look really good! You might find that power tools just take more off, more quickly. At first you might lose a few, or have to tweak them as you go, but once you get used to it you'll be all good. I still do a lot of shaping by hand, and every piece is rough cut, and "finessed" with hand tools. That Dozuki saw I purchased was a true game changer for work like this.

* For the heck of it, I'm going to add that I really like to work the all poplar sayas, lately, which is a shocker for me. You can find surprisingly nicely grained pieces and they shape like buttah!


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## ejd53

Lefty said:


> These look really good! You might find that power tools just take more off, more quickly. At first you might lose a few, or have to tweak them as you go, but once you get used to it you'll be all good. I still do a lot of shaping by hand, and every piece is rough cut, and "finessed" with hand tools. That Dozuki saw I purchased was a true game changer for work like this.
> 
> * For the heck of it, I'm going to add that I really like to work the all poplar sayas, lately, which is a shocker for me. You can find surprisingly nicely grained pieces and they shape like buttah!



Yes, the Poplar is by far the easiest to shape and cut. It also has the advantage of being soft and easy on the blades and is the closest relative of the traditional Ho wood used in Japan for saya making. There is a reason they used it. I have been thinking of doing all of my sayas in poplar and then perhaps doing inlays of other wood for decoration. I guess the traditional way to do it would be to lacquer it.


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## Mrmnms

I think your sayas are stunning. I hope you didn't fully scrap the first one. It was beautiful .


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## ejd53

Mrmnms said:


> I think your sayas are stunning. I hope you didn't fully scrap the first one. It was beautiful .



Nope, still have it. I am thinking of using it to make some other paring knife sayas. Just haven't figured out quite how I want to do it yet.


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## Korin_Mari

Awesome!


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## 3200+++

very nice!


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## apathetic

This is really impressive!


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## ejd53

Just finished another one. This is Will's 200 mm "Red Shark" gyuto in figured redwood. Interestingly, this one turned out to be more difficult than expected. The redwood is soft enough that I had some problems with tear-out while dealing with the figures. It was slow going.


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## Baby Huey

very nice.


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## ejd53

Anton said:


> Very nice. Any pics of the spines and coil area?



Here you go.



This is in Poplar



Curly Maple



Yellowheart



Bubinga



Bubinga



Bubinga



Paduk



Paduk


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## Anton

very nice sir


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## WillC

Nice, getting better and better.:doublethumbsup:


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## reedux

Sorry for bringing this thread back from the dead, but ejd53, if you can share your process of how you made these, I think it would be very helpful to myself and others who might get inspired to try it themselves. 

I actually made a saya with walnut wood and a dremel. It's not as clean as yours, but glue-time aside, really only took me about an hour. I just routed out the shape of the blade on two planks of wood and sandwiched them. 

Also, where did you procure some of the rarer woods you've used (bloodwood, cocobolo, etc.)?


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## crunchy

You can purchase Bloodwood and cocobolo at woodcraft, and a few other nice exotics.

Great looking sayas!


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