Yoshiaki Fujiwara and Itinomonns

A bouquet of Itinomonns, Brown mallee, Ironwood and Bog oak.

Two Yoshiaki Fujiwara Kikuryu with Ironwood and one Itinomonn with Thuya chaps.

Letdown.

When four knives with the same wood comes back due to cracking and shrinking one has to reflect for a while.

For me a knife is treated in the same way as when I was a computer technician, I DON'T want the knife/computer in return... I want the CUSTOMER to return to me, I don't want to "fuck up", but sometimes it happens and this is a solid case of this happening.



Both me and my colleague/employer Maksim has talked to the persons affected by this and for the both of us it feels like a well oiled cricked bat straight to the nuts with minimal warning.



As much as I hate this, it feels good to remake this and the result will be a customer that can tell about the "Wood fuck-up" and how we solved this in a good manner".



Now I want to show you some pictures of wood that caused me more nightmares than customer satisfaction, enjoy because this will NEVER happen again.

Stealing from my colleague.

So it pours down like never before this year, I was free from work and my better half was at work... so I got bored quickly when I woke up. I saw some saya-wood I was gonna use for boxes for j-nats and thought "what the hell, i'll make a saya today".

This is the result, now curing mixed 50/50 danish oil and poly-laquer. 

Hopefully Maksim won't kill me because of this(i'll compensate him with some handle wood or so layer on). :P

 And yes that's red wine and a faux kasumi finish on that sujihiki. :)

Yoshiaki Fujiwara and five Itinomonns

All knives from the last shippment finished.

Ironwood burl, Honduran rosewood burl and Bog oak.

First 180 and 210mm Itinomonn.

Yesterday I took two gyutos from the shop to finish up in the kitchen at home, if I had about 1-1,5h more in the shop before I had to leave... there would have been five of them in this post.

I made these with different handle shape, this shape does not force me to use as much rasps and files as the coke bottle versions do. Working with hand tools is fun for sure, but the motion gets pretty monotonous and takes a toll on upper back and my right elbow.

So this is somewhat of a compromise, another reason why this had to be done is that i'm getting a new schedule at work that lacks 24h shift = more days at work and less whole days in the shop.

Desert ironwood burl(top) and Honduran rosewood burl(bottom)

Second Yoshiaki Fujiwara - Kikuryu

Yesterday I finished these and shipped them to Denmark.

Yoshiaki Fujiwara - Kikuryu, desert ironwood burl

Shigefusa kitaeji 150mm petty, 2000 year old bog oak

First Yoshiaki Fujiwara - Kikuryu: done.

Ok, my WIP went as expected... a huge gap between last post and this, but I don't care I'm just very happy over how this one turned out! :)

Just fantastic!

To show the handle shape a bit better I took some phone-pics of it aswell. I use the fridge as a light bouncer when taking pictures, the trolley does not stay there at all time. :)

 

More WIP

Tracing the contours of the handle.

Cut on the bandsaw and holes for pins drilled.

Test fit, seems ok.

Brown/red pigment added to blend the glue with the wood

Shigefusa kitaeji 210mm gyuto

Here is a shigefusa kitaeji gyuto for a lucky customer of japanesenaturalstones.com.

Handle is desert ironwood burl and brass pins.

Shigefusa kitaeji 210mm gyuto.

And I drew "first blood" on it while reaching for a piece of cloth

Award that goes out to me for being stupid.

Some kind of WIP

I'm giving a work in progress a try, this is a Yoshiaki Fujiwara - Kikuryu that just got a notched brass bolster installed.

Hopefully i'll have an update for this later today.

Notched brass bolster.

Rehandles from the past.

These are rehandles between spring 2012 and todays date, not 100% organized in chronological order, enjoy. :)

Yoshikane, 210mm and 240mm gyutos

Wood, Snakewood, Walnut burl and Koa

Yoshihide, 270mm sujihikis and 150mm pettys

Wood: Snakewood, Ironwood and Redwood burl

 

 

 

 

Zensho/Yoshikane 240mm gyuto
Wood: Amboyna burl

Kato 240mm prototype gyuto

Wood: Snakewood

 

 

 

 

Eskilstuna 210mm slicing knife
Handle: Moose horn

 

 

 

 

Eskilstuna 270mm scimitar

Handle: Ebony, white paper micarta

Zensho/Yoshikane 165mm chopper

Wood: Redwood burl.

Ohishi 240mm gyuto
Wood: Desert Ironwood

Fujiwara FKM 270mm sujihiji

Wood: Cocobolo

Ohishi 150mm petty

Wood: Desert ironwood

Forgecraft 240mm chef knife

Wood: Flamed redwood

Zensho/Yoshikane 165mm chopper

Wood: Amboyna burl

Zensho/Yoshikane 165mm choppers

Wood: Desert ironwood

Teruyasu Fujiwara Denka No Hoto 300mm gyuto

Wood: Dyed redwood burl

Zensho/Yoshikane Cleaver 215mm

Wood: Cocobolo

Keiryu Kiridashi

Wood: Walnut

Small Tamahagane knife by Kato

Handles: Mammoth ivory and blackwood

Itinomonn 240mm gyutos

Wood:Desert ironwood, Buckeye burl, Snakewood, Cocobolo

Shigefusa 150mm pettys

Wood: 2000 year old bog oak

Zensho/Yoshikane 165mm chopper

Wood: Maple

Itinomonn 215mm cleavers 215mm

Wood: Ironwood