(upbeat music) - Hi, welcome to "The American Woodshop."

I'm Scott Phillips.

And today we're going to use some amazing steel blades of knives and put wonderful wooden handles on it.

All sorts of tips today, and a kitchen tray that's perfect to keep everything in.

So, stay with us.

- [Narrator] "The American Woodshop" with Scott Phillips is brought to you by... - [Announcer] Woodcraft since 1928, providing traditional and modern woodworking tools and supplies to generations of craftsmen.

Woodcraft, helping you make wood work.

- Pro tools for tool pros.

(upbeat music) RIKON Tools.

- Woodcraft Magazine projects, plans, and web links designed to help you make wood work.

- PS Wood, home of Timber Wolf's Swedish Silicon steel bandsaw blades and super sharp scroll saw blades.

- 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.

(gentle music) - Today you'll learn how to make your own knives.

That is the wooden part which is called a scale.

Now to do that, there are a lot of different ways to do it.

And we've shown you this before, where we used rivets, which are the pins that go through the wood like this.

And you can use rivets, but with modern epoxies, you're good to go without it.

So, right here what I've done with a paring knife, which is the most useful knife going, on orange agate.

I've already glued one half so I can take it to a saw and trim close to the exterior without hitting the metal, and take it to a sander, then glue another piece of wood on it.

Repeat that process.

Keep it long to make it safe.

Things like that.

So, A to Z, we're going to cover it all today so you can make your own cutlery.

And then I'll show you how to make your own kitchen keep like this one right here.

This is made out of crown molding.

Everybody has some crown molding laying around.

We're going to show you how to do the compound cuts to finish a tray that's perfect in the kitchen.

So, the first thing is do it safely.

Whatever you do, be sure to read, understand and follow all the instructions that come with the tools and products you use in your shop.

And this is called gaff tape which I love.

You can tell because I'm out of it.

And with gaff tape, it has a residue that when you put it on a knife, it will not gum up the knife.

It will come off when you peel it off.

You could use masking tape, but I like something thicker like this.

So, the first thing I do is on anything like this big, weed control machete that we're going to make.

Beats heck out of using chemicals.

I'm going to mask off that sharp edge.

And then the other thing that I do to protect my fingers is I put it into a sandwich of wood.

So, no sharp edges are exposed as I'm working with that.

So, I'm going to turn a handle for this out of this block of wood.

So, let's go to the bandsaw, cut it to length, and then let's get to turning.

When I make knife scales, I use a bandsaw with 1/4-inch blade, six TPI because it can do everything.

And the first thing I need to do is use a piece of SpectraPly.

And that's what SpectraPly is.

It's plywood made of different dyed pieces of veneer.

And this one's a bit more subdued, which is good for a garden tool.

But watch what happens.

I have a layout line there.

I use a miter gauge to cut this to length.

And since I'm using highly resinous woods that have a tendency to be offensive even with dust collection, I'm wearing an N95 mask.

And again, work safely.

Okay, so I'll make this cross-cut and then I'll give you some bandsaw tips.

Turn that up to speed, (bandsaw roaring) dust collector on.

(bandsaw roaring) (bandsaw roaring) Okay, easy as could be.

(bandsaw roaring) Turn that off.

(bandsaw roaring) Now, that is a turning blank that's perfect to turn for the handle of the machete, the garden machete.

Now, let that blade come to a complete stop.

It's still coasting down.

And I'm going to show you what you can do.

This is glued with a good five minute two-part epoxy to the orange agate.

So I'm going to trim that out right now.

Using the same blade, going to lower the guide assembly just a bit to guard it.

And again, I'm not going to worry about getting right up against the steel because we'll sand to that.

I just don't want to hit the blade with that steel.

(bandsaw roaring) That would dull it, obviously.

(bandsaw roaring) Let's start on this side (bandsaw roaring) so you can see it easier.

(bandsaw roaring) Take your time.

(bandsaw roaring) (bandsaw roaring) Now cut this out.

(bandsaw roaring) (bandsaw roaring) And with the 1/4-inch blade, (bandsaw roaring) you can really swing a tight curve.

(bandsaw roaring) Fingers are never in the plane of the blade.

And I could go back in to take the rest of that off.

And now I can use that as template to cut another piece of wood, sand that and glue both scales on it.

And then the final little tip of the day on bandsaws, I'll turn this off.

Again it's coasting down.

Is...

This is a resaw fence.

Just a three-inch square piece of wood with a piece of cloth back double-sided tape.

And that goes right on to the resaw fence.

And you go, "Why can't you just put the fence up against that?"

And I'm really making sure that's bonded securely, applying good, steady pressure there, because watch what happens here.

As I raise this assembly, which is a guard and it supports and guides the bearings, the blade rather, to cut thin pieces of wood.

And this is the thickness I want right there.

And this is called Purpleheart.

And wood workers know that this will change color in time.

The way to stabilize that purple is put it in an oven at about 200 degrees for about 20 minutes and it will lock that purple color, which is really nice when you make another type of scale that we're going to use on this type of knife right here.

I've already got that laid out to cut the other side out, but it starts with the thin wood.

So, this is how you make that cut with thin wood.

Now watch my hand position.

Now, I lower this so the bearings are down right next to this block.

And see this guards the blade.

And I'll tighten that column lock.

That's important as you do resaw work.

Now watch this end-for-end.

There's one tool I have to get.

I have to get the push block.

This is a homemade push block with a foam strip on the bottom.

And that's good 'cause this heel hooks around the back, and that lets me push this, but also keep this down to the table and against the auxiliary fence.

Now let's make that cut.

(bandsaw roaring) Let that come up to speed.

A lot of people have problems with resawing because they aren't using good blades.

Now let's resaw this.

(bandsaw roaring) And I'm not getting in a hurry.

I give that blade a chance to carry away the sawdust.

(bandsaw roaring) And if you're having drifts, you need more tension on the blade and you need a sharp blade.

(bandsaw roaring) Okay, so there's zero drifts on this.

And Purpleheart is a dense wood.

So, it's doing a fine job.

Now when you finish this cut, cut out of the cut.

That's good.

(bandsaw roaring) Turn that off.

(bandsaw roaring) Watch that blade as it comes to a stop.

Let's pull that apart.

Straight as an arrow.

That's awesome.

And that's how you make thin pieces of wood to make your scales.

And then the one final thing we can do here now that you know how to do resaw work, and there is one other key.

See this black box?

That's variable speed control on my bandsaw.

It's actually running at 4,000 surface feet per minute, which, man, makes that bandsaw blade behave.

The one final thing I'm going to do is cut that other Purpleheart handle out.

And lower that down.

And once we get that done, we'll take this over to the wood lathe and turn it.

(bandsaw roaring) Here you can see the turning blank or billet is held by a four-jaw chuck.

The corners are in between the gaps right there.

And that's secure.

And the live ball bearing center is into the end here.

And I'm using a inch and a quarter roughing gouge just to knock the corners off.

And because I've been turning for 50 some odd years, I'm turning it at 1200 RPM.

If you are a beginner, you would want to do that much slower.

And what I'm going to do is knock those high spots off.

(machine roaring) (machine roaring) And so, I just go in, take nice light cuts and wait until you see that SpectraPly come to life.

And one more pass.

There.

That's almost round.

Woohoo, one more pass.

Rubbing the bevel as I make that cut.

Well, let's take a look at that.

That comes to a stop.

Oh, yeah.

And that's why I like to use SpectraPly.

It's all that variation of color, and it's dimensionally stable.

Now the next step will be, and check it to make sure it's secure.

I'm going to use a carbide cutter, round and I want to make sure it's right at or slightly below center line.

And if you're having trouble making a cut, raise the handle a little bit, put that cutting edge a little below center line.

And I'm going to... What do you have?

You have four fingers.

Okay, I need four coves.

And that's what I'll use this to make.

So, let it come up to speed again.

(machine roaring) Looks good.

And gently going in.

(machine roaring) And you could use this to round.

Just gives you a little bit of a rougher cut than the roughing gouge does.

(machine roaring) Okay.

So, I know from experience where I need to put those grooves.

There's one.

(machine roaring) Nice little cove.

Here's the second little cove.

Remember this is for a machete.

So it's going to be hot sweaty work.

So you don't want dinky little coves.

You want coves that are easy to hold on to.

Now I can round those high spots over.

And what do you call those?

Those are called beads.

So, in turning, you now know all you need to know because everything in turning is either a cove, which is cave-cut or a bead which is bump-cut.

Okay, so that looks really good.

Now down here on the end, I'm going to round that ever so slightly.

Just taking that right on down.

Nothing could be easier.

Okay, that's fair game right there.

Like that.

And let's see.

Right up here is where I need to use the parting tool.

And that's diamond-shaped.

Watch what I do with that.

I start to make a parting cut.

(machine roaring) And I go in about 1/8 of an inch.

Bring it back over.

And I can walk that right on down without it getting into a bind.

(machine roaring) Okay.

And how far can I go?

Down about 1/2 of an inch.

And that is the handle that I'll put in a jig and split the sides off and then we can glue it on.

But let's take a look at that because we are ready to bring up.

Oh, yeah, that's magic.

See, I'll slab off this side and that side, a bit of sanding and I've got myself a beautiful SpectraPly handle.

So, I'll take off the tool rest, bring off the dust collector, put my mask on, sand a bit.

And then I'll put it in a jig, take it over to a bandsaw and slab off these two good parts of the handle.

Did I mention safety?

Make sure you have the blade completely protected so that there's no way that it can scootch and cut you.

Now, what you have to do, (machine roaring) takes seconds.

(machine roaring) I've got one more spot to go.

(machine roaring) And let me turn that off (machine roaring) now that I have (machine roaring) the steel blanks all cleaned up.

And you have to scarify that.

That just means rough it up.

Because if you don't, shiny metal that has some sort of milling oil on it, it just will not hold the glue.

And then the same for this piece right here that already has one side glued on.

Now, you don't have to glue one side on if you're careful.

You can glue both sides at the same time with the handy advent of packing tape, because it doesn't really like to stick to the epoxy.

So, you can do the glue on there and then you put your wood on there and then you tape it all extremely tightly and you let it cure out.

Of course, you line everything up.

But let's get back to the turning right here.

See that right there?

How it was cut, the sides off.

And I'm saving that core for yet more scales later.

But on this, it will butt up to the end just like that.

And it will butt up to the end on the other side.

And that, because of cutting it at the bandsaw, once that's glued on there and sanded is a perfect grip.

Over here's the Purpleheart for yet another garden machete.

And it's just very satisfying to take out weeds with that.

And then this is a kitchen fillet knife hidden because that's a wicked blade.

And then there's a paring knife.

So, to glue this up, here's the deal.

What I have to do first is I have to put two-part epoxy.

I need it to be the size of a half dollar on one side.

I want it to be equal parts.

And you want to do tests about what epoxy works best.

And so, 50/50.

Same size right here.

And you don't want to mix any more than you need because if you do, you're just wasting it.

And now what I'll do is start to stir this, and I want you to see what happens.

Just use any old waste plastic.

See how it's starting to go cloudy.

That means a chemical reaction is going on now.

And when that starts happening, clock's ticking.

You have five minutes.

And on this variety of epoxy, I know that's true.

So, I want to make sure it's thoroughly mixed.

If it's not, it won't cure properly.

And this is at 70 degrees, relative humidity at 60%.

All those things make drying glue dry different ways.

So, here's the glue going out on this part of the scale as the wooden grips are called.

Okay, and you know what?

This is going to get messy.

So, before I get any glue on my fingers, with the clock ticking, I'll put gloves on.

And I have a sacrificial board down so that it doesn't get on my work bench.

So, let's get at this.

That looks really good right there.

You have to massage that glue into the wood.

And that looks really good.

It's starting to get tacky.

That's good.

Get more out here on the other part 'cause we're going to tape this up at the same time.

Left and right scales.

So, do not have any oil or residue on the steel.

Do sand it and scuff it up.

Technical term.

So that the glue has a mechanical surface to bond to.

There is my first piece.

Butt it up to the back.

And all the different knife blanks have different dimensions of handles, but it's no big deal.

Use your imagination.

It's not hard to figure out what works and what doesn't.

And flip that around like that.

Like so.

And then before you start to tape that up, just let that start to dry so that when you tape it, it doesn't scootch around.

So while that's happening, I'm going to get the other blanks all glued up.

And once I have glue all the way around, everywhere that I need it, remember it's fair game to go ahead and glue one side on first so it doesn't skate around as much when you put the other piece on.

But I'll go ahead and glue all these up, then tape it and let it cure.

And while that's happening, we're going to go make the keep tray for the kitchen.

(saw roaring) To make the tray, we're going to do a series of compound cuts.

I want the scrap always falling away from the blade.

That's for safety.

And if you look at this, we're doing a compound cut.

I have it set at a 31.6 degree miter and a 33.9 degree bevel.

And that gives me a beautiful outside corner, but it gives me this compound angle right here.

So, that's how you join the corners together.

And I have this laid out.

So what I do is I bring my laser up to my layout lines, lock this down and I make all the cuts that pivot to the right first.

(saw roaring) Now let that come to a stop.

Scrap again falls away from the plate.

Tilt it to the left now, miter.

And when you bring the long piece up to that and you mate together those two compound cuts, it gives you great 90-degree outside corners.

So, let's head over to the bench, put it together.

(machine roaring) So, I use a biscuit jointer to make those 58 degree fence angle on the biscuit jointer.

Biscuits cuts, and look at how the corners then come together with the biscuits just like that.

And that's how you create the frame that goes into and wraps the 3/4-inch red oak plywood bottom.

So, the next steps are to put glue into the corners and the biscuit slots, and then glue on the mating faces that join to the red oak bottom.

And draw it all tight with a band clamp because that's the only way to draw these corners together.

And then from there, I pin it with 23 gauge fine wire pins from a pneumatic nailer.

And that's how the tray is made.

So, that's how the tray comes together.

Set that out of the way.

Let the glue dry.

And I have about half an hour's worth of sanding using an 80 grit strip sander and a random orbital to bring these handles into shape.

But it's all looking really good.

(machine roaring) Just work safely.

Work through the grit.

(machine roaring) Finish with 220.

(machine roaring) (machine roaring) Be thoughtful about the rotation of the belt and the disc.

You always want it pulling it down to a table so that it's secure.

(machine roaring) I'll work this out.

(machine roaring) So, here's the reveal.

And look at that beautiful wood shine.

And don't be afraid to do something unorthodox.

That handle looks pretty bizarre, but it fits my hand perfectly great for fillet work in the kitchen.

And then look at these machetes.

And remember, all of these come pre-sharpened.

So you have to be very careful with them.

So, this is great for weed control.

And that along the back edge of each of these machetes will take down any weed that ever was.

So, this is again, hardened stainless steel.

And I can trust this to keep an edge like no other.

Now that's it on "The American Woodshop."

Don't forget this keep tray when you cut the crown molding at the miter saw.

You keep that cove on the bottom of that crown up against the fence.

That's the key.

And keep it flat to the table and use those right angles.

So that's it for this week.

Join us next week for more great projects.

See you.

(gentle music) - [Announcer] Woodcraft since 1928, providing traditional and modern woodworking tools and supplies to generations of craftsmen.

Woodcraft, helping you make wood work.

(dramatic music) - Pro tools for tool pros.

(dramatic music) RIKON Tools.

- Woodcraft Magazine- projects, plans, and web links designed to help you make wood work.

- PS Wood, home of Timber Wolf Swedish Silicon steel bandsaw blades and super sharp scroll saw blades.

- 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.

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

(gentle music)