For those of you who have made knives and put wood scales on the handles, when using a belt sander do you sand the scales all the way to the metal tang? Or stop short of the metal and then finish sand by hand? Anybody actually use a router with bearing or flush trim bit to get the wood down to the tang?
MarkShultz
I agree with Grant. Router is totally unnecessary. I take the scales down to within 1/32" of the tang using a coarse belt on my 1×30 belt sander. Then I do my countour shaping on the scales until they're how I want them. Then I put a fine grit belt on, finish flushing the scales to the tang and sand the marks from the coarse belt out. Finally I hand sand until I'm satisfied that I've removed any marks from the belt sander and finish by using buffing compound on a cotton wheel. I'll polish the spine of the knife at the same time so it ends up with the same finish as the tang.
No finish for me usually with stabilized scales Mark. I find that they polish out really nicely and the stabilizing resin provides a nice hardness. When I do finish scales, I really like Tru Oil. 3 light coats, 0000 steel wool between coats then buff the final coat out with a cotton rag.
Tru oil, just put your gloved finger over the top of the bottle and tip it over. That gives more than enough for a coat. I do that 4-5 times to build a coat then steel wool then at least a couple more coats.
Here's one i did with stabilized sinker cypress and probably 8-10 coats of tru oil.
![Image]()
![Image]()
Here's one i did with stabilized sinker cypress and probably 8-10 coats of tru oil.
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