Part 2.1 - New knifeThis new knife section will be much shorter, so ask if something is unclear etc.
This time, instead of going with a mass produced blade I went with a one-off (afaik) from a blade maker in denmark. Here is the dudes website:
http://va-knives.blogspot.se/ its actually a really cool blog too, but jesus how can someone who makes such cool design by hand have a website that looks so fucking terrible :S Blade is made from Uddeholm Vanadis 4E steel which is a lol "super steel", like the big boys use in expensive knives (£300 folders etc). Really hard, strong steel basically, but not stainless.
Handle, as I talked about earlier, is made from a block of stabilized lime green poplar. Basically its wood turned into a hard plastic, so:
1. quite tough to cut/drill (broke a drill)
2. cant go too fast because it melts a hardens a lot, and discolors when hot
This blade doesn't have holes that fit corby bolts, which makes assembly a bit more involved because I need to use 2mm pins from silver steel instead, drill holes for them and then glue it all together with boss mode epoxy. I really wanted to use aluminium pins instead, but couldnt find any, and it was a project I did together with a friend (I'll see if I can grab some pics of his knife later, its done) so I wanted to start when he did.
I'm cheating a bit here. There are only 5 holes for pins, but that asymmetric shit wont do, and I'm also too lazy to make a new hole in the metal (or dont have the drill bits capable of drilling in this metal), so I only drill the last hole through the wood part and insert 2 shorter pins there instead of one long one
After that I smear on the epoxy (make sure it gets on the pins so it fills up the holes!) and put it all in a vice over night (24h drying time on this glue)
That done I use a metal saw and dremel cutter to clear away all the extra stuff from the slabs, then file down the handle to shape etc like for knife #1. only it takes 3 times longer now because this material is so hard. I have new respect for the guys who
make knife handles from gemstones.
Knife is now sanded down to 1200 grit and I'm using a layer of thick shellac polish to seal any pores (technically it wont have pores and is perfectly water resistant as is, but any small irregularities will be filled also so surface will be nicer):
(yes I am aware it doesnt even look remotely lime green here. its super green in direct sunlight tho)
next update will be with finished pictures for blade.