Pear hunter

[bjansen]

Below is a little knife I finished this morning. It is about 7.5" long, with a 3.25" W2 blade, stainless guard, copper spacer and pin.  The handle material, although maybe not an real exotic...is kind of an exotic piece to me as I have never worked with, or otherwise seen a piece of Pear wood.  A friend of mine sent me two quartersawn slabs of Pear that he had cut and air dried for several years and I had a few pieces stabilized. This is a fantastic species to work with...it is dense, the grain is not touchy and it finishes very nicely (stabilized or not).  I tried to improve upon a few things on this knife as compared to the walnut hunter I recently finished.  First, the handle shaping...I tried some new methods to better transitions of all pieces and second I tried to better center the copper pin.  Finally, I think I did a better job at peening the pin on this one...my little boy helped me peen this one in fact.  

Here are a few pics.

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

[bjansen]

 

[shreffler]

That's a beauty! I really like the pear wood. Really different. Awesome job.

[Track]

Nice work Brad.

[Ray Hammond]

Nice looking knife, Brad.

I love pear and persimmon wood.  There's a chair in our family's heirlooms that is 200 years old made of persimmon and it's undoubtedly one of the toughest woods there is...it's been polished by hundreds of hands and bottoms over the generations and is just a fabulous looking all wood chair.

[bjansen]

Persimmon is some great stuff as well.  I used to see that all over in the Shawnee NF in Southern IL, but have not ran across a persimmon tree in the woods out here.

[D.Ellis]

Nice shape and fit/finish looks good.
May I suggest a couple tips?(I'm gonna anyway   :D  )
1-Leave the handle material a bit proud of the fittings so if it shrinks you don't have a sharp edged spacer sticking up above the handle material.
2-round off the bottom of the handle a bit more. It looks too square on this one.
3- keep on building and posting, you're doing great!
Darcy  

[bjansen]

Thanks Darcy. I appreciate this feedback...and it is exactly what I need.  I understand what you are saying on item 1 and I tried this on the walnut knife (although it is hard to see in the pics).  

Are there any tips to perfecting the slightly proud transition (other than being careful)? For example, I thought about getting the stainless and copper fittings to about the final deminisions and layering 2 or 3 layes of tape around them and then doing the final shaping and sanding even flat with the tape (then removing the tape and slightly rounding the corners). I was just not sure if there were any methods that others use to help get this transition even all around the knifee.  

Point 2 - totally agree and I can see that now too.  

Thank you!

[Steve Nuckels]

Great looking knife and size!

I agree about the handle shape.  Pretty wood.

Steve
--------
Potomac Forge
Member, W.F. Moran Foundation
ABS

[D.Ellis]

Originally posted by bjansen:
Thanks Darcy. I appreciate this feedback...and it is exactly what I need.  I understand what you are saying on item 1 and I tried this on the walnut knife (although it is hard to see in the pics).  

Are there any tips to perfecting the slightly proud transition (other than being careful)? For example, I thought about getting the stainless and copper fittings to about the final deminisions and layering 2 or 3 layes of tape around them and then doing the final shaping and sanding even flat with the tape (then removing the tape and slightly rounding the corners). I was just not sure if there were any methods that others use to help get this transition even all around the knifee.  

Point 2 - totally agree and I can see that now too.  

Thank you!

The Tape idea is a good one......should work well. I assume you are assembling the knife and then shaping the handle?
I usually do thru tangs with a nut.......basically takedown style(although I always epoxy them permanently after) and so once I have the handle fitting with no play, and shape the spacer, I take a sharp pencil and trace around the spacer.......then with the handle off the tang, I file the handle down but leave the pencil marks, then round the end over a tiny bit.
Lots of ways to skin that cat.......but the bottom line is like you said.......just be careful.

Darcy  

[bjansen]

Thanks Darcy,

Here is the process I was using on these hunters.  I am getting a tight fit on the guard and spacer, and then nearly finishing them to final dimensions.

Then I am getting a tight fit on the handle material to the tang, drilling the pin hole and making layout marks on the handle block for final deminsioning.   I then use a process of the handle both off and on to remove material and do the final sanding of the handle while attached (but not epoxied to the knife).  I do this attached to the knife primarily as it is easier to sand the handle while it is attached.  Then I take everything apart and epoxy it up.

[D.Ellis]

sounds like you have a good method there.......just stop removing material a bit sooner      :D
Darcy  

[Bodork]

That's a beauty for sure Brad! Did you use your home made grinder on this one?

[bjansen]

Thank you.  Yes indeed, there is not a day that goes by in the shop that I do not use that grinder, whether that be for a blade or any other project.

[Bill Kissner]

Brad, you just keep improving with each knife! You excel in every endeavor you undertake!