The Woodworker & Woodturner – September 2019

http://www.getwoodworking.com September 2019 The Woodworker & Good Woodworking 53

2 The oak root sliced up using a bandsaw 3 A piece of maple adds strength 4 The handle templates are laid out...

each newly cut surface over the planer so that

the slices emerging from the saw were flat and

smooth on at least one side. The maple (photo

3 ) required only planing to a thickness slightly

greater than that of the blade tangs, at which

point the templates could be used to mark out

all the pieces for cutting (photo 4). I needed two

pairs of handle shapes in the oak, and one each

in the maple with pin-pricks to mark the corners

of the central cut-out for the blade tang (photo 5).

Once marked, I used a^14 ⁄in blade in the bandsaw

maple for contrast, seemed like a good solution.
This approach had the added benefit that, because
the tang was flat and square-edged, a cut-out
in the central strip of maple would create a hole
for the tang once everything was glued together.

Drawing out handle designs
The first step was to draw out designs for the
handles (photo 1). I did this by photographing
the blades on a white background, then drawing
a handle-shape around them on the computer

and printing this out at actual size. The templates

were glued to thin card and trimmed, though

there was no need to cut out the central cavity

as it was just a rectangle and could be marked

easily enough using a pin.

Preparing the parts

After a bit of time spent deliberating over which

orientation of the knobbly root would yield the

most usable wood, I cut it into approximately

10mm slices on the bandsaw (photo 2), running