Homebrewed fishtail chisel

A project made out of wood! with a metal thingie sticking out of it.

I found a thick stainless cheese knife at TJMaxx for a couple bucks and it caught my eye for some reason. I traced off the desired shape and cut the waste off with a cutting disc in the foredom. I marked off where I wanted the tang to go.



I made successively deeper perpendicular cuts with an angle grinder to shape the tang, then cut the comb to get the shape slope I wanted. I sanded here and there with the Fein until it was generally symmetrical.



Started flattening. The "natural" edge of the cheese knife was a little rounded and wouldn't flatten. I gently shaped past the round with a sanding disc in the foredom. Got the back mirrored on sandpaper up to 2000.



I struck at 30 degrees on the grinder but I didn't like the quality of the edge and I didn't want to lose precious metal, so I switched to a jig on sandpaper.





I flipped back and forth on 2000 until I liked the edge, then I stropped with tripoli.



I fussed around with files and sandpaper until I got the matte finish I was after. I won't bore you with lathe pics but I turned a handle out of cocobolo, popped on a ferrule, and crossed my fingers when I drove the tang home.



Nicest cheese knife I own!