Knife Build #2

 

I am pleased to say that I bought this Hock Paring Knife Kit in person from Ron and Linda at Handworks 2015.

The 3.5 inch paring knife kit consists of a wonderful Hock blade and the necessary pins. The kit is Model #KP350.

I am making this second knife for my sister.

It will have handle scales from a piece of purpleheart that my brother, Tom, left me when he moved to California.

For the most part, all of the steps in this process are identical to the first knife.

The entire knife 1 build process can be seen here.

 

Info about knife kits is available at Hock site

 

 

Wood Selection and Scale Prep

The #KP350 blade is made from high-carbon tool steel.

It was forged in France and sharpened by Ron in California.

PDF Hock Knife Kit Instructions

 

 

This knife will have a purpleheart handle.

 

Wood selection: Purpleheart, Amaranth

Peltogyne spp.

Central and South America

More info about purpleheart here.

The blade was covered in tape for protection. The blade comes incredibly sharp.
When sawed, the exposed purpleheart turned a lovely purple.

 

However, when sanded with the 1 x 30 belt sander, the hardness of the wood and the oils in the the end grain turned pitch black, there was an issue with burns.

I trimmed the burns the best I could with chisels and lessened the burns with hand sanding and then moved on the glue up.


 

Epoxy Setup

 

The inside surfaces of the scales and the tang of the blade were sanded to 150x to provide a better adhesion surface.

Then the mating surfaces and the pins were cleaned with acetone.

I chose a strong, water-resitant epoxy adhesive, Devcon 2 Ton® Epoxy...comes in two 4.5 oz. bottles.
To mix...equal dollops of the resin and the hardener were squeezed out.
then mixed...
The adhesive was then spread on to one side of the tang...

 

Clamps on...will sit for a 24 hour cure.

 

Sanding

 

Here is the knife after being pulled from the clamps.

 

 

Grinding the pins was done on the 1 x 30 belt sander with great care to not burn the wood.

Further removal of metal and wood was done with the Rotex 90 sander with 40x paper.

After all the metal and wood was taken down to proper size, the grits were progressed from 40x-80x-120x-220x-320x-400x.

 

Here is the spine after the belt sander...a few burned areas.
After Rotex sanding.

 

 

 

In particular, great care was used on the end grain to prevent burning the wood and to try to remove earlier burns.

 

 

 

 

Although the grain on the end darkens easily the charred look was carefully removed.

 

Finishing

The finishing cycle consisted of multiple coats of Waterlox wiping varnish.

Each coat was saturated and then dried using wet/dry sandpaper.

 

 

Three saturations and rub-ins were done at each grit from 400x-600x-800x-1000x.

All of the sanding and finishing turned the previously lovely purple to a duller, browner color.

The finish was extremely smooth.

The finished product after a coat of Tru-Oil.

 

 

 

 

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