Who Doesn’t Love a Quality Kitchen Knife?

When you find yourself in the chuck box on camping trips or in your kitchen preparing a meal for everyone you definitely want a good reliable blade at your service.

I have found myself many times in the past working with a knife, wait scratch that, fighting with a knife, trying to get the task done. It can be very embarrassing to say the least, especially when the crews watching your every move.

So with all that in mind I built a custom kitchen knife with a good Japanese 3 ply veneered steel, added some local wood we found several miles up the road from our shop, and Wala!

I was excited when I found a forger just outside of Osaka, Japan who forges quality blade blanks for kitchen utensils with a cutting edge that's exceptional.

The steel worked smoothly when starting with 60 grit on the belt sander with good progression up through 400 grit before finishing up with the belts.

I was able to weld a square stainless butt cap to the end of the tang and round it off with the belt to an oval shape to fit the desired handle ergonomics customer needed.

Then it was time to lock myself into the shop to start the slow, tedious hand-wet-sanding process to gain the desired satin finish. Ugh!!!!

After a few hours of slowly moving up from 600 grit paper to 3k paper the smile always comes back when the satin finish starts to show.....How Satisfying...

One of the best parts of the build process in my opinion is deciding what handle material will work best with the application and type of liners to be used.

When it comes to wood materials I love using local woods that my partner, Walter, and I have harvested from the local forest or storm-damaged trees in the local communities.

This knife's handles come from a log we discovered on an old logging road that was discarded by lumberjacks due to the wood being spalted and knotty.

We were very excited to find that the wood was nothing less than Shaggy Hickory with the log being a full 32" in diameter and 16' long! We went to work on harvesting a few sections to take back to the shop to start the drying process for stabilization.

After several weeks of working the process, Walter had the wood dried, stabilized, and cooked; now ready for shaping. After a few cuts and hand sanding, they were ready to be blocked up.

The block-up is one of the fastest processes of the build, it is just a matter of having everything arranged and ready for glue-up and block. I have found that by having all the pieces arranged and in order of which piece comes next that I have plenty of time to arrange all the pieces, clamp, and wipe off excess epoxy before it has time to harden. Once block-up is finished it is hurry up and wait for it to fully set.

Once the wood and steel have fully bonded the handle can be put to the belt grinder for the shaping process. Once the edges have been toned down and most of the excess wood removed it's back to the hand-sanding, polishing, and sealant.

I like bringing my surface finishing up to the highest possible sanding to bring out the luster in the wood, this also allows for a good even soak of oils when sealing the wood.

I was able to bring this finish up to 3k so it actually obtained its own seal and finish, all that was left for me to add was some wax and oil finish to the surface. I must say the spalted hickory looks amazing and should bring many years of service due to its durability and hardness when cured and finished properly.

I hope you have enjoyed the article on what some of the main processes are in my shop when building a knife and how rewarding it can be.

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Thank you for your interest and till next time, be safe and have a fabulous day!

Jeffrey Hunter