(upbeat music) - Making your own custom kitchen cutlery has never been easier.

You can buy the kit and then put on your own wooden scales, that's what the handles are called, and we'll get into all the nuances today behind doing that for your kitchen and the one you love so stay with us.

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(dramatic music) - As a woodworker, if you're like me, you save all the beautiful scraps of wood.

And the perfect thing to use them for are the scales, that's what the wooden parts of the handle of a knife are called, can really shine.

Bring new life to that knife.

And so making your own presents and knives has never been easier, and we'll get into that.

So right now, how do you cut out the scales?

Okay.

Well what you do is you take the knife that you're going to make, lay the handle flat on it and you trace out the pattern.

And to trace that pattern out, I like to use this style of layout pencil where you can put that point out just ever so gracefully so that you can trace that pattern perfectly or, better yet, they actually have a white marking lead that you can trace out so on darker woods, it's very easy to see that cut line.

So let's go do a band saw workshop.

You'll learn to tune it up and also how to cut these scales out.

Now the key to getting the band saw to track properly and give you control in the cut is to keep that blade on the center of the top of the tire and make sure that it's locked in place, once it's tracking, and you have it under tension.

Now that's a three eighths inch blade and in the manual it says set it to three eighths of an inch on the tension scale.

That's not true.

What you do is, and this is unplugged, the only time I ever touch a bit or a blade is when it's unplugged and I lock that column, that's key for control, the four fingers up and with the bearings pressing against the side of the blade, with the front edge of the bearing well behind the set of the tooth, see how that flexes right now.

Now watch what happens.

Okay now it's getting stiffer.

Okay.

And now as I press with good pressure on the side of that blade, it can't deflect more than a sixteenth of an inch and that's the way that I like to tension the blade, that gives me good control.

And I'll get this plugged in and I'll lower the guide block assembly to stabilize the cut and also guard the blade during the cut and then we'll turn it on with dust collection and start to make that cut.

Power up the saw.

Now keep the work piece big enough that you can keep your fingers safely away from that cutting blade.

And remember work safely, be sure to read, understand and follow all the safety instructions that come with the tools and products you use.

Okay and then I know from experience we're going to do what's called nibbling cut.

This is a great durable blade but that's as tight of a radius as you can cut but that's still okay because what I can do now is sweep around that corner like so and when it starts getting into a bind, just cut out.

And don't reach in there and get rid of that scrap, use your workpiece to get rid of that scrap.

Work safely.

But let's see, I'm going to come in this way, to save this piece for something else down the road.

And then I bring my hand up and I control that work piece so that my fingers are never in the plane of the cutting teeth.

Okay.

And then what about these little details?

That's easy to make a quick little cut like this so that when you come in to nibble that away, the blade does not get into a bind.

And this doesn't have to be a perfect cut because remember we're going to profile that.

So those are some tips on not only cutting out the scales but on how to tune up your band saw and tension it properly.

Look at that wood.

I'll get that other scale cut out then it's on to the glue up.

Keep in mind you want more wood than less.

You want to leave the line as you cut out the scales and that quartersawn grain is selected so that when I put it on the scale, it just covers that handle with about a sixteenth of an inch overhang and that's perfect right there.

The other thing is, look at the place on the handle, the steel, that's going to accept the glued up wood.

That's been roughed up with a 60 grit sander first, with a dust mask and then wiped clean.

Same thing for the scale work pieces.

You want it to be roughed up, 60 grit, and cleaned off.

No sanding residue.

Now before I go any further, look at this.

Scrap plywood and just heavy duty black duct tape and that creates a type of finger protector and what you do is you put that blade, with the teeth in the middle, and you wrap that around and then you draw this tight and yeah the duct tape has really good holding power and it also stretches ever so slightly which puts that whole thing under pressure so that's going to stay there.

Okay you'd never want to put that on the blade directly, you want it to be sandwiched between the wood so on all the pieces that I'm working with, I do that with these finger savers, as I call them, and then when I clamp these up to profile this, that is a safe way to work with these blades.

Now that's for the bread knives.

And we'll get on to the gluing in just a second, but we're going to do steak knives that also receive that mosaic pin and that's got a pattern to it.

And the way you cut this to length is just with a good hacksaw blade.

Put the piece, the longer shank into the vice and cut it to the length that you need for the thickness of the wood scale that you want.

So I'll bring this up and go ahead and bond this together and this is a worthwhile step to do.

This is going to protect you from an accident down the road.

So that's good.

Now on this one, it's cleaned up and it's ready to go to the drill press because what we did is we glued one side of the scale and then sanded this smooth so now we can drill it to match the pins.

Okay, that will insert it.

So we drill one hole so we get the placement through the metal to the wood just right.

More on that in just a second, let's do the glue up.

Here's the tip, if you're doing a lot of glue up, buy the bigger bottles but you want the five minute cure.

50/50.

Now for smaller quantities, these sort of syringes on a clean piece of scrap, give you the 50/50 mix right off the bat.

You wanna do enough to cover whatever you're gluing and the clock's ticking, you have to move out here but make sure you put the keep cap back on so that you save the glue.

And the other thing is you will get some glue on your fingers now, when you're working with these scales so gloves on.

Some epoxies have solvents in them, you don't want that on your bare skin.

Okay so you mix that thoroughly and watch the color of this, when it goes white you have a good blend but you wanna get all of it mixed thoroughly together and now, because this is a five minute epoxy, we're moving out, that's ready.

So on this one right here, it's been cleaned both sides, this one you only glue one side on at a time and you position it so that you have that wood all the way round and then you just sand off the residue before you glue the other side on.

So the process is like this, best grain out.

That's absolutely beautiful right there but I like the tighter quartersawn pattern there so I want that on this side.

So what I've learned is, put it on the wood part of the scale and this is where you can see you need the gloves.

Or at least I certainly do, I know I'd have glue on my fingers right now.

That's good right there.

And you can bring this up and rub it back and forth on the clean part of the metal, just like that and you lift that off.

And what I'm looking for is uniform coverage and there are no gaps there.

And there are no gaps here so we have glue on both parts.

So now what I can do is butt this square shoulder up against the shank of the blade.

Okay.

And you want the metal going all the way through the wood.

Some knife kits you have stubby pieces that go into the wood, just less than half the way, that's never going to hold up.

And now, that has some serious bonding power right there so you don't need to clamp this but what I've learned over time is, you take you other scale, remember you only do half at a time, and you can create a little bit of a lip, that's a little bit too thick right there.

Wanna use another scrap scale to put under that guard and I line that up and that looks perfect.

Keeping it square to the shoulder.

Now let that cure out, we'll come back to this in a second but let's go over to the drill press and I'll show you how to drill the pin hole perfectly every time.

To drill the pin holes, I have to drill the hole through the metal and the wood to match the size of the pin and we're using a quarter inch pin.

So that's a metal drilling bit because the first part of this process is to make sure the metal is drilled perfectly.

Now I don't drill all the way through with this metal bit because it would tear out the grain on the bottom side.

Now what I'll do is switch out, see it started to punch out right there, it would break the grain out.

I'm going to put a Brad Point bit in there, finish drilling hole and there be no tear out there that way.

That's how you get a perfect fit for the pins every time.

So I'll change that bit and then drill it and then it's on to assembly.

Once I have the hole drilled through the scale and the metal in the middle of the knife handle, then I know that's going to match the pin and so I glue the other half of the scale on and when that cures out, I like to give it half an hour even though it's five minute cure, I can use that as a pilot hole on the drill press and drill the hole all the way through and then epoxy the pin in.

The other thing is I've put the scales on the bread handle and I made it nice and big because I have a big hand and we'll get into the sculpting of that in just a second.

So the bread handles are looking good, no pins there, pin here.

Now while that cures it's time to learn how to use some special finishes to make some beautiful writing pencils as it were.

Everybody has a pen, Scott Grove has the answer.

Once again we're working with Scott Grove.

I tell ya, you inspire me.

- Thanks for having me back.

Appreciate it.

- And look at these beautiful turnings.

Now I know a lot of people turn pens but that's the most beautiful pen I've ever seen.

- Thank you very much.

- And so how do you do this?

- Well this is paua shell from New Zealand and opal.

They're both from Easy Inlay and it just gives it, especially the opal, it's just little spots of fire and I just love it.

And then these can be cast in a clear resin, either epoxy or alumilite or even a UV cure resin if you don't have a pressure pot to do the casting.

This one I did just by globbing it on and going outside in the sunlight and it sets up in 10 seconds and it's ready to go.

So it's really fun and you start with a brass tube, usually paint that black and you glue on, with either CA glue or epoxy, the little bits of paua shell and opal and yeah there's nothing like it.

I just love this stuff, it's just really great and, as you can tell, boy that's a million dollar pen.

- Yes it is.

And we have the pen kit right here, more on that in just a bit.

- Yeah.

- But let's get to turning.

Face shields, you like to have a glove on because it throws out sharp pieces.

- Yeah in the very beginning when you're breaking off the corners you know, basically you got a plastic and it throws off sharp shards until we get it smooth and then we'll have nice ribbons of acrylic peeling off.

- Okay and tool rest wise, you're happy with the height.

- I am.

- Okay good.

- And with the, when you're turning acrylics, I like to use carbide tools and I'll use a standard carbide tool to break it down to... - A rough form.

- A rough form and then I go to a negative rake.

- Right.

- And a negative rake is just great.

It cuts real smooth-- - On acrylic.

- On acrylic yeah absolutely.

- Okay here we go.

And let's see those cuts.

And as you turn, describe what you're doing and how you're doing it.

- Well as you can see, the very beginning we're turning a square right?

So it's not smooth at all, real bumpy so you have to take very light passes just to knock off the corners.

- Gotcha.

- Until we make this into a cylindrical form and then I can work on the shape.

- Okay.

So you're taking light cuts, just knocking it round?

With a traditional round carbide cutter which means the chisel's level to the ground, the cutting edge is right at or slightly above centerline and you're going straight in, taking light cuts.

And look at his hand position.

The hand on the chisel, that has the glove, up against the tool rest, the backside, absolutely has one job to do and that's hold that chisel flat to the tool rest.

Now that it's round we can dial up the speed to 2100 and describe that cutter.

- Well this is a Ci5, this is a smaller cutter but it still has the negative rake.

It's solid carbide with a negative rake on it.

Gives me a little more control, a little more detail so let's give that a try.

- Let's see what we get with that.

Acrylic.

- [Scott G] Yeah and you can see now it's smooth.

- [Scott] Right okay.

2150 is what we have right now.

Oh look at those ribbons.

Oh heck yeah.

Oh look at that.

Wow that's so cool.

I'll tell you what, making knives is fun but ho oh turning acrylic, and you'll see a lot of other acrylics that he works on after we get this turned.

That looks pretty good.

- [Scott G] Yeah see what that looks like.

Okay.

And this stuff just wraps around so you can see how strong it is.

- [Scott] Oh good grief, it's there to stay.

- [Scott G] But yeah looks pretty good.

- [Scott] Oh it's awesome.

- And it's not uncommon, it looks like actually I have a little air bubble right here.

I'll actually go in there and fill that with some superglue, some CA glue or that UV cure resin.

- Sure.

- And it's not uncommon to have to make a repair.

Especially on castings like this where I didn't use the pressure pot.

If I use the pressure pot, you know okay I can get the perfect casting but you gotta invest in a lot of equipment so I like things that people can do at home.

- I do too, that's what this show is all about.

So the next thing is-- - Sand this baby up.

- Sand it up.

So I always remove the tool rest here.

And I'll let you get it set up for sanding.

N95 dust mask dust collector.

- Correct.

- Okay.

So Scott describe what you do to bring the finish up.

- Well there's two ways of doing this.

You could sand on the lathe up to you know, 12,000, 15,000 or I like to just stop at 600 and then I go to the buff and I use a Tripoli buffing compound and then go to white diamond.

- Okay let's bring her up.

Then we'll push the parts together back on the wood lathe.

- [Scott G] Yeah.

But look at that.

- [Scott] Oh heck yes.

That's beautiful.

And this red compound is just an abrasive?

With wax, that's what goes on to the buffing wheel?

And you just charge that wheel up and go to town.

Gorgeous.

And you keep it moving so it doesn't overheat in any areas?

- [Scott G] And it's very important you don't go down and catch this edge.

- [Scott] Oh right.

- [Scott G] You only wanna watch the bottom half because that would be-- - [Scott] Bad.

And the rotation is away from you, it's down.

You never push it into the rotation.

- [Scott G] That's correct.

The lead in.

There you go.

- That is sweet.

- Touche.

- [Scott] And look at that fire of all the inlays and again, describe what we're looking at right now in there.

- So this is paua abalone.

So abalone shell comes from all over the world but paua shell only comes from New Zealand and it's a jewelry grade paua shell and the the opal is a lab grown opal.

Has the same brilliance as real opal, fraction of the cost, actually it's better than real opal 'cos real opal has water trapped in it, that's what gives it its fire, this is replaced with resin.

Takes 10 months to grow a little piece of this stuff and yeah just love it.

- Okay well this show is all about creating with your hands and I gotta tell you, put it there because you inspire me.

- Thank you.

- There aren't many Scott Groves around in this world.

We need more of them.

- I hope not.

(laughing) - Outstanding Scott.

Well I bet those scales are dried on the knives, let's go back and make the kitchen knives.

- Let's sign off.

Ahh.

- That epoxy is solid now and I don't like to work with it unless it's cured out for half an hour, even though it says it's five minute epoxy.

And this type of vice right here is the perfect way to work.

You know it's great to take this tool, watch this, to profile the handles because the blade is always contained and safe in that plywood sandwich with that heavy duty duct tape, and this vice is the perfect way to rotate it around so just release this handle and then I can get at every profile.

So that's the easiest way to shape it, just make sure you're wearing a N95 dust mask and good side shields on your safety glasses and sculpt away.

Little bit of hand sanding and that handle's ready for perfect finish.

Profiled and it's nice and big don't make the scales, the wooden part of the knife, wimpy, you want it to fill your hand.

And profile it anyway you want to just as long as it's comfortable.

So let's take a look at this right here.

Ease that out.

And this is where you want to be very careful, look at that.

That is ready for action and that handle's just grand.

Now this buffs dry, watch that sharp edge.

Whatever you do be careful.

And you can see all the way round that quartersawn sycamore is absolutely telling a story, that's grand.

This one is profiled down a little bit more.

This dries to a hard sheen and the beautiful thing about this butcher block conditioner is it's great on cutting boards and, when it gets worn out, all you have to do is buff a little bit more on.

You might want to use cutting board oil to clean it up and rejuvenate it a bit.

The pocket knife, same material on it.

Although they do sell gun stock oil that's a linseed oil based product that's excellent but I love that right there.

And, on this knife, since this was just glued on, I did faux pins on this by drilling a hole and then packing that hole with the epoxy first, then mother of pearl, then on top of that a material called marina.

I let that cure out and I sanded that smooth and it looks just like inlaid opal.

And then the knife holder is ready to go right there, just like that.

Buffed out.

Same material and remember to cut those slots.

Use a dado head assembly and you're in business.

Now I'll get these knives all set up here and we'll get a look at this as the finished project.

You gotta love it.

With these beautiful wood accents in the kitchen, or as a gift, the folding pocket knife, you just can't beat this.

You can't go to the store to buy these things and then to make your own knife holder like this, and look at all those scrap woods.

Orange agate, tiger maple, now this one has the mosaic pin that we cut off with the hacksaw and then glued that in and then sanded that down but I love this opal style right here.

That's just a nice little accent.

And then quartersawn sycamore and purple heart.

I'm telling you, we're in business.

Now, go make your own whatever you do.

It's easy to do and you know how.

Next week on The American Woodshop, more inlay from Scott Grove of Easy Inlay as we make a beautiful stylized American flag.

Thanks for being with us today.

Stay well and get busy in your shop.

- [Male] Woodcraft since 1928.

Providing traditional and modern woodworking tools and supplies to generations of craftsmen.

Woodcraft, helping you make wood work.

(dramatic music) - [Male] Pro tools.

For tool pros.

Rikon tools.

- [Male] Woodcraft magazine.

Projects, plans and web links designed to help you make wood work.

- [Male] PS Wood, home of Timber Wolf Swedish silicone steel band saw blades and super sharp scroll saw blades.

- [Male] A bed to sleep on, a table to share meals, a house that feels like a home.

The furniture bank of central Ohio providing furniture to neighbors in need.

(dramatic music) - For more information on tips behind The American Woodshop, and watch free episodes 24/7, check us out online and like us on Facebook.

(upbeat music)