My parents were given this breadknife as a wedding gift, or possibly as a first anniversary present (it was some time ago, so they can’t quite recall which). They ‘sharpened’ it by periodically running it through a pull-through knife sharpener (don’t do that), and they periodically put it through the dishwasher, too (definitely don’t do that!).
So after 45+ years of abuse, the handle looked like this. At first glance it looks surprisingly un-buggered considering how horrible the dishwasher is as an environment for anything wooden. However, closer inspection shows the ply is delaminating and there are stray fibres lifting from the handle.
The handle was originally a pale brown and interestingly, the dishwasher has both bleached some layers of the ply, making them pale, but also caused a sort of blueish staining – I assume from a reaction to the salts present. My aborted attempt to gain a chemistry degree was some time ago so I couldn’t tell you what the likely culprits are.
The staining goes deep, as I discovered when I hacked back at the very soft plywood. I wasn’t worried about preserving the old handle, so just had at it with another knife, and filed out the old aluminium rivets.
Once the handle was removed, I was presented with a grotty, glue-covered mess of a tang (the blunt part of the knife that the handle is formed around).
After cleaning up the tang with some gritpaper, it was on to shaping some wood for the new handle. I used paduk – not a particularly local offering, but hardwearing, rot and insect resistant. Ideal for the knife’s new life as a garden tool. After cutting out a block roughly the right size it’s a case of tracing the outline and marking where holes for the rivets will need to go, drilling and then doing a rough shape before cutting in half down the centre to create two equally-sized matching scales.
Wood and steel don’t necessarily bond together well, as the wood can flex with changes in humidity while the steel is prone to expansion and contraction with temperature. Having a liner between the two of a more flexible material can be helpful to reduce these strains and ensure that everything stays bonded together; for this project I used a thin layer of brown leather, sandwiched between the wood and the steel.
Glue-up is simply a matter of masking off areas that you don’t want to get covered in epoxy, then mixing up a slow-cure two-part epoxy. Here I used a little of the sawdust to help colour the resin closer to that of the leather and wood, as well.
Everything got clamped up and left for 24 hours to cure. The epoxy is nominally good to work with after six hours or so, but using rasps, files and sandpaper can be a pretty aggressive process so I like to be sure that everything is well-stuck.
I used wooden dowels as a temporary set of pins to hold everything in alignment while I decided what to use for the final rivets. Traditionally you’d hold the scales onto the handle largely through the mechanical clamping pressure of well-driven rivets but with modern epoxies the rivets are doing very little actual work, so I don’t feel too bad about only putting them in after the glue has cured.
For me, the process of shaping the handle from a messy composite block of material into a deliciously smooth handle goes like this:
- 1. Use a rasp to quickly take back material until the steel of the tang is visible, this is quick, bulk stock removal.
- 2. Use files to smooth out the marks from the rasp, and to refine the shape to ensure symmetry.
- 3. Continue with the files to begin rounding the shape, making it ready for hand-sanding.
- 4. Using 80 and 120-grade paper, continue removing stock until the handle is nicely rounded and smooth to the touch.
Once the shaping was nearly complete, I drove three brass rods through the holes with a little epoxy smeared around them, and gently smushed them with a rounded hammer. This peening process flares out the end of the soft metal of the pin, creating the mechanical clamp that helps keep the pin in place and clamps the wood and leather tight against the steel of the handle – or would, if it wasn’t already stuck firmly with resin. Progressively working through the higher grades of sandpaper bring the handle to a high sheen and blend the pins into the woodwork nicely.
My mum intended to repurpose the knife for use in the garden, so the serrations were no longer needed and in any event, were long since mere hints of a wave in the blade. So, some careful grinding and flattening later, the blade is reduced to a more or less straight edge with only a suggestion of an edge to it, suitable for removing plants from pots and the like. Finished result? As below:
