piątek, 31 stycznia 2014

New handles.

Before I took a brake in knives projects I had to finish 3 handles for somebody from Poland.
Itinomonn 240mm gyuto, Kato gyuto 240mm and Kato petty 180mm.
Handles are made of stabilised figured Oregon Maple and stabilised Red wood burl.


Takeda project part 2.

Hello.
I haven' been here for a while but it doesn't mean that I haven't do anything. So I have finished Takeda project. Am I happy? No... Actually I am very sad because of that coz I have lost my love to what I am doing and I had to take a brake.
Ok. I will explain everything. I received two Takeda'a from Sweden. I had to make new handle out of ultra nice materials, two sayas and after that I had to thin those knives out.
I was so eager to do that that I decide that it will be my best hand work and also that I will make handle tutorial for knives forum in Poland, my home country. So I started. I took loads of pictures, everything was perfect.  Unfortunately I don't have those pictures now because I've lost data on my memory card.
This is a handle before applying finish.


But then owner of those knives asked me to cover that handle with CA glue to protect it. This was the moment when everything gone wrong. I have never done that before so I started experimenting. I must say that I thought that I will cry because of that handle. Every time when I applied CA glue it creates new layers and it was very visible and I had to regrind it. Every time when I grind off the CA my handle change the shape...


When you look at it you could say that it doesn't look bad but actualy it was bad. It looks like plastic etc. I decided to finish it my way and I used boiled linseed oil to finish it and then I polished it with mops and compounds.



I glued it in, not really super straight but I've done what I could. This was the time when I started feeling pressure. 






Afterwards I had to make sayas for both knives. This is where I get a good life lesson. ''You should never neglect even simplest tasks.''
I thought that it will be very easy to make those sayas and guess what?... Yes...  It gone very bad. I don't want to give you details but I made two big holes in those sayas. You even can't imagine how bad and stressed I felt when I had to tell that to owner of those knives. Those are new sayas:



I can't find pictures now but there is a hole in one saya which I had to epoxy and it looks very bad.

My last task was to thin them down. I will not wrote many words here. I will only say that those knives cost 700$ and the grind is the baddest I have ever seen. Takeda is a very well known maker and he should take care when grinding his knives. I will also say that my first kitchen knife done by me is cutting much better than Takeda. I spent many hours on stones trying to make them thinner and also to rise shinogi line but they are made of Aogami Super Steel which is very hard to work with. I've done what I could but these knives need grinding wheel. I had to send them back to their owner and He sent them back to Japan. 
I heard lately many bad comments about Takeda's and his grinds and many people are sending their knives back to factory.















So.... Now I am finished with that project. I am so unhappy with it that I have lost my love for knives and I had to take a break. I live in the flat and working without workshop partly in kitchen and partly in toilet (as the grinding room) is making things really hard. I should wake up in the morning, go to workshop and do my stuff before I go to my work. It looks different. I am waking up in the morning, setting up my workshop (30 minutes), working for 2 hours and cleaning for another 1h 30m.
This is why I am doing mistakes because of lack of concentration. 
Once I will rest and clean my mind I will come back with new knife projects so wait for my new posts.