# Handle: A Friend's First Take



## ModRQC (Aug 21, 2022)

I really didn't know where to put this. A few subforums could fit, but I was sort of wary it'd come out as showing off. It's not mine work but a friend of mine's, who's really nothing like showing off ever. I'm showing him off... and that's when I realized that to some extent this was just another review of sorts after all. Me showing off somebody else's work. My only defense being that I've shown plenty enough of my work too to be criticized, ratified, perhaps even admired.

My friend makes bows. That's what he pours himself into, that's what he knows best how to make. But he's basically a woodworker for a long time even before going into applied skills.

However when I asked several months ago if he'd make a handle for me one of these days, he was all into it. Owns a couple J-knives, likes to prep and cook, so he was a raw, quite "down with it" talent I could tap right into. What I had in mind was the next knife I'd buy I would like everything about but the handle. I thought it would present itself pretty fast.

However happenstance is what indeed happened first. My cheapest J-Knife - some Sakai Kikumori "SS" carrying a lame plywood Yo handle so small it would basically be tricky to hold firmly, or squarely sore the hand quite fast - got to the point where it unavoidably failed at the rivet nearest the heel, blade coming looser and looser.







Knife had proven quite useful with ungodly stuff I needed done at times, so it was a bit of a small setback. I thought of taping it and have a go at it still until the handle would basically fail entirely... or simply of throwing it to the trash and getting something more solid... then I thought of my friend and asked if he'd go so low as to a rescue project to a cheap knife not worth his indisputable skills. He agreed... don't think it was even to be nice to me as much as he liked the idea of fixing and improving something in dire need of such skills. I offered money but of course he'd have none of it. He just wanted the project.

My father, at his now old age, still works his own car repair shop. I didn't want my friend to suffer the pain of "leftover" handle removal, especially where he does EVERYTHING by hand in his shed without any power tools, and already making plans of prying the handle off the blade and filing the rivets down... so asked my father if he'd use his milling to drill into the still good rivet - which of itself didn't look too good, but still was what held the whole thing together somewhat securely. I taped the blade and let it into my father's care.






Soon enough the knife was brought back to me with the scales/rivets off. Apparently the good rivet wasn't so very much more solid and presented some minor problems to what would otherwise tend to be a straightforward affair. I just wouldn't know but I that I asked to preserve the scales as much as possible surely played the most into it.






So I in turn let the knife - and scales so that he'd have the idea of where it came from - into my friend's care. Blade still taped. He did not remove it ever except pushing some of it off the heel area for some space - barely so. He had never seen, used, nor otherwise know of what the knife was originally but those scales and rivets in a ziploc, with a taped blade and the very same few pics you've just looked at.

So I'd like to thank my father AND my friend for being much better assets than I could ever be myself for what became of this knife. I might be able to improve on a solid handle... or grind/sharpen a blade mostly. Perhaps... but things like these are out of my toolset, or more frankly skillset. Oh I've no doubts I could probably get around the milling, or DIM the old handle removal work where I don't even own a drill or something. I'd get through it somehow... scales be damned.

But what follows I don't think I could ever do that. Skills can be learned, but I'm no woodworker. Don't have the patience, don't feel the thrill. So not only am I ever reviewing someone else's work here, but I guess I also am reviewing some indirect result of such thrill they get doing stuff out of my ballpark. As such, this is quite a "review" after all, in that it's as usual me looking back on stuff I haven't the faintest idea, but some lame theoretical grounds, how to do.


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## ModRQC (Aug 21, 2022)

I asked... for something solid, anything that would fit the blade to allow more prolonged messing up with it.

I _requested_ that it ideally would be:
-western shape
-bigger and grippy

But really just solid. Well, my friend obliged on all fronts. And not without some personality and intuitivity.






I think the most astounding is that he used some wild sweet cherry wood he'd found and thought of making a bow with but reserved aside because he didn't know of how it could fit a bow especially not knowing anything of the exact subspecie he had at hand.

To such a blade, this is worth anything 4-8x the value even if conservative.







And the top of it he made a "half" octagonal with:









Overall shaping, if just a bit rough, is tenfolds ergonomically adapted. Tapering is exquisite.







The wood grain itself, the two shades he had assured me he would get and play upon as much as he could, and even the willing inclusion of "wood inclusions" (my own referencing to J-nats "natural impurities") just make it riveting.









The finish is a bit rough, just how I like it best in hand, and coated with food grade tung oil.






He was worried of how his handle would fit the narrow blade, especially of how close a finger could tend to slip and nick at the heel, but he didn't need to be, having made a very comfy "fingerguard" without sacrificing a maximum tapering of the handle where it meets the blade... admittedly, tapering at the neck is another thing I "requested" as part of "a bigger western". I probably "requested" 10 other small details along the way of the discussion.






And so what can I say... I'm not an especially lucky guy, but I'm sure lucky to have those few friends I have...






And also... just... jawdropping results for a first handle, a western at that, without trying or even seeing much of the blade, and there answering anything I "resquested" for just as much as anything I didn't even think about in my own excitment.

I'm thus also lucky the guy has a cool head.


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## Carl Kotte (Aug 21, 2022)

Really cool! Reminds me of hot dog buns.


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## ModRQC (Aug 21, 2022)

Carl Kotte said:


> Really cool! Reminds me of hot dog buns.


How are yours holding up through the years?


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## Carl Kotte (Aug 21, 2022)

ModRQC said:


> How are yours holding up through the years?


Indestructible


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