My First Wa

[DanCom]

I've been playing with this for the past week. I finally put an edge on it.
It's an 8" blade of 154CM that I tempered out lower for about a 60C hardness. The wa handle was done freehand and consists of an ebony ferrule, 0.065" brass spacer and a stabilized brown maple burl handle. The primary is ground to just under 20 thou, then a 15? cutting edge.





I know, I know where's the saya! I will be making one very soon.

Happy summer!

Dan

[PoolQs]

Great looking Dan !!! looks like a heck of a slicer.
Congrats to your new chapter of knife making.

[pcpc201]

Beautiful.

[Ray Rogers]

Very, very nice! Did you find that handle easier to make than you thought it would be?

[DanCom]

Thanks guys.

Ray, yes it was easier than expected. I had the materials to make a second one if needed, but it worked out okay. I did the internal dowel trick and epoxied the pieces together. The faceting I did on the flat platen with the handle vertical. I scribed # marks on the ends and worked the front of the handle and then the back. Then I then brought the two together the middle.

The saya should be done in a few days. I'll snap a picture of it all together then.

Stay cool.

Dan

[BCROB]

how did the touch up go (gap-filler) , how did you fix it it ?

haven't been to other site for a while.....

[DanCom]

Rob, I shortened the ferrule about 2mm and the gap was next to gone. Acraglas'd the tang in and wiped the excess away with an armour-all wipe. It's good to go.

Dan

[BCROB]

Originally Posted by DanCom

Rob, I shortened the ferrule about 2mm and the gap was next to gone. Acraglas'd the tang in and wiped the excess away with an armour-all wipe. It's good to go.

Dan

awesome , glad it turned out and you went that route making it right instead of covering it up like another had suggested , good job

[toolmkr20]

Nice.

[Hunter10139]

You always bring great and often complex pieces of art her dan. This one is no exception, great job.

[DanCom]

Thanks Hunter and Toolmkr20.

I finished the saya tonight. Sorry I didn't have anything exotic for wood. I re-purposed a piece of oak fireplace mantle, circa 1930. Ripped it into 3 slices 1/8" thick and made a glue-lam with a cut-out center layer.
Probably nothing close to a traditional Japanese version, but works the same. At least I didn't have to hand-train a platoon of termites to perform the routing activity.

[RedstickJP]

Looks awesome