# “Old School” Wa Handle



## AidenCC (Oct 8, 2021)

I have recently been looking at a lot of vintage Japanese knives and have bought a few as well. It seems like in the past metal (steel?) ferrules were much more common than they are now. I decided I would try out making a handle constructed that way for a recent project.






The ferrule itself is 0.020” nickel silver soldered with hard silver solder.



On the old knives it looks like the metal has a cold rolled finish, but here I used scotchbrite.





The fit up was way easier than for Buffalo horn, I basically fit it 50% of the way with a saw and chisel, then added some epoxy and drove it home. The compressive force definitely would have split horn. The handle is basswood serving as a honoki substitute.





Here it is finished on a santoku. This knife is a gift to a relative who is a little hard on knives/tools (though I have given them knives with progressively finer edges to try and change their mind on that), so I figured a sturdy handle would be a good fit.

Thanks for looking and I would be interested to see if anyone else has replicated handles like these or has any insights into the history of wa handles.

AidenCC


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## KnightKnightForever (Oct 8, 2021)

Looks amazing! Thanks for the details


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## cotedupy (Oct 9, 2021)

That is very cool! I rather like it's understated elegance.

Interested to hear also if anyone has any more info on the history of this style. A lot of the old knives I buy to restore have this type of metal ferrule/collar, as you say.


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