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Part 6 - finishing the knife

Now we polish the blade and we do this by sanding it down with emory paper. And we go through a series of grinds to make the polish finer and finer. Start with 100 grit emory paper and polish the whole knife. Then shift to 180 or 200 and polish the whole blade section. At this point you don't have to polish the handle section anymore. The handles will glue to that.

Typically I go to 600 grit in increments of 100. This gives me a finish I am satisfied with. But if you want a mirror finish on your knife you could continue to go up as high as 1200 or 1500.

This polishing is going to take you 2-4 hours of work so watch a movie while you are doing it.

Next is an optional step. I didn't find the buckeye burl wood quite right for this knife handle. It was a bit too light so I used a minwax stain to darken it up. After the stain dried I sanded it down.

Totally up to you whether to do this, and it depends on the handle wood you choose.

Now it's time to replace the temporary wooden dowel pins with the brass pins. So cut yourself two pins off the 1/4 inch brass rod. Cut them just a little bit (1/32 inch) longer than the wooden pins. We will file them down after they are pinned into the handle.

Now we are going to glue the handle halves to the knife and pin it with the brass pins. I use this 5 minute epoxy gorilla glue. It is terrific, very strong and dries clear.

Mix it according to the instructions and apply a liberal amount to the insides of the knife handles.

Put the two halves of the handle on the knife and pin it with the brass pins. Tap them in with a hammer or mallet. Make sure each pin sticks out on each side. That little excess will be filed off later.

Wipe any excess glue off everything and clamp the handle down. Don't clamp it on the pins that won't be a good clamp.. Clamp it on the wooden handle.

Once the glue has set you can use a file to file down the excess off the brass pins. You can get it down so they are flush with the wood and you can't feel any difference between pin and wood.

Now we can finish off the handle by polishing it with Tung oil. Do a coat, let it dry and do another coat. You can continue to do this for a very deep finish. It will look great. Lightly sanding between coats will help a lot.

You can also touch up the blade with fine emory paper.

And, I haven't sharpened my blade but now it is ready to be sharpened.

That's it! Your Karambit is done. Congratulations!!! If you make this be sure to send me a picture!!

Make a throwing knife - This is a fun project to make and a fun project to use! I had a lot of fun with this. All you need is a piece of steel and some basic tools. And you don't need a forge. You can harden and temper this with a torch. Make a Throwing Knife

Tutorial on How to Forge a Knife - I take you through the complete process of forging a knife. All the way from raw piece of steel to finished knife. With lots of pictures and even videos. How to forge a knife

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