This is part 5 of the knife making tutorial. In this part we finish making the knife. If you came directly to this page you can start the tutorial right here: How to Make a Knife Part 1

Finishing the Knife

Ok, all the hard work has been done. Now it is time to finish off this knife!

Clamp the knife down and polish it with emory paper. Work your way through grits bringing it to the desired finish. I started out with 100 grit and then went in 100 grit increments all the way to 600. This gives is a great almost mirrored look. If you want a real mirrored look you can buff it out after working with the grits.

This process takes some time. It took me a couple of hours. You are working with hardened steel!

You should also clean up the tang. Remove all the scale but there is no need to actually polish the tang. We just want it nice and clean so handle can be nicely glued to it.

If you haven't already done it sand the insides of those handle halves. make them nice and flat so they will sit cleanly on the knife tang. And once you have done this go ahead and just scuff up those flat surfaces with sandpaper so the glue will hold nicely.

Mix up a two part epoxy. I used a gorilla glue epoxy with a 5 minute set time. Most people recommend a 30 minute epoxy but I was good with this. Get an epoxy that is made for metal and wood.

Gorilla Glue 4200101 Epoxy 25 ml Syringe (This is the exact epoxy that I used) It is available on amazon.com. I got mine at the local home depot.

Apply a nice even layer of epoxy to both the handle halves.

Now go ahead and assemble the handle. Put the two halves against the blade and pin it with wood dowels. (or brass dowels) Be sure your pins are a snug fit ahead of time. You don't want to apply all the glue then find out the pins are too loose or you can't get them in!

Clean off the excess glue with a rag and clamp this assembly down or together. Don't apply clamps right over the pins this doesn't actually clamp the handles to the tang.

Clean it a little more. And once it dries you can clean off much of the glue with acetone or mineral spirits. You can also scrape it with a razor.

Now you can clean it up 100 % with a fine grit sandpaper and at this point you can now do any final rasping or sanding to get it to its final shape.

Now get a great look on the handle by applying Tung oil or Boiled Linseed Oil. Let it soak in and dry then scuff it up with a fine grit sand paper and apply another coat. You can continue this process of scuffing and coating to get it to a very rich look. It brings out the grain very nicely too.

Ok, Let's finish this up by sharpening.

Congratulations, your knife is done!!