# Making a saya with hand tools only



## strumke (Oct 27, 2016)

Just received my saya nomi from Robin and I'm looking for a little direction on next steps. What thickness of wood is best to start with for a single or double bevel knife? I'll probably get something cheap to test out but I'd like to end up making a saya out of more decorative wood than balsa.

Any other tips/tricks to the process? I like the idea of rounding the whole thing so there aren't any 90 degree angles (except for the place where the blade enters). I'll be using sandpaper to do this, so hopefully I'm not getting too ambitious here.

Thanks!


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## Matus (Oct 29, 2016)

We are in the same boat. Robin was so kind to throw in a few flat pieces of soft wood for saya (it takes two of them to make 1 saya). Each of them is cca 1cm thick

Check out this video:

[video=youtube;fsFP7_7RMjM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsFP7_7RMjM&index=2&list=PL1g_Yu3cjapPegPi2Cx1Trgd9HTq76y8X[/video]


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## strumke (Oct 30, 2016)

Thanks for the vid. Went to Blick and picked up some basswood to do a practice run before spending $$ on buying more expensive wood. I'm going to try to take some photos of progress and hopefully post my results. Starting off with a 165 shig deba.

Not sure if I should go with something simpler, but I figure there's plenty of room for error since it's a thicker blade than a gyuto.


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## milkbaby (Oct 31, 2016)

I made my first saya from balsa, second from basswood, then next two from pine, all by hand tools only. Balsa feels the flimsiest and gets dinged the easiest. Basswood stands up to a abuse better than balsa, and pine better than basswood. For quick and easy, basswood works well, especially if in a thickness easy enough to cut with a box cutter or utility blade. Pine will require a saw.

To me it's easier to make a saya for thinner knife because it's less work chiseling out the slot for a thinner blade versus a thicker blade.


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## Ivang (Oct 31, 2016)

Hi. I decided to make my own sayas a couple of weeks ago. All i used is some poplar and Alder 1/4" thick hobbyboards, a couple of cheap chisels I bought at home depot, gorilla glue, some sanding paper and a small 2x4". It took a while ( carving for the most part), poplar is easier to work with, but I made 3 so far and I'm very pleased.


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## strumke (Oct 31, 2016)

Realized that the deba was a bit more of a challenge because of the curves/angles on the blade, but I kept chiseling away. I ended up with a pretty decent fit but one thing I did realize is when carving a deep knife out of one of the two pieces of wood, I'm left with a very off-center slot because one piece is the original thickness (1/2") and the other has a 5mm hole dug into it. Without using a saw/plane/chisel, it's going to take a little while to sand down 5mm or so from the other side.

I have just enough left over from the strip to try carving a saya for a paring knife, so while this one dries, I'll probably take a stab at that.


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## milkbaby (Oct 31, 2016)

I learned the same thing about chiseling out so much from one side too, LOL. The next one I did for a thicker knife I actually chiseled from both sides, but more from one side than the other so it wasn't as drastic a difference yet the blade edge was still away from the hard glue seam,.


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