Japanese Knife Sharpening / Martell Knives

Here's a Hiromoto AS petty with a brand new handle I just made for it. The wood is maple burl and the pins are nickel silver.

Today I've got a 160mm nakiri to share that has a brand new handle I just made for it. The handle's wood is a really nice piece amboyna burl that was selected by the customer and is attached to a buffalo horn ferrule along with nickel silver/copper/G10 spacers. As you can see in the pictures the amboyna is some real nice stuff but it challenged me a bit as the block came with one half as one color and the other half another with the divider running nearly down the middle le...ngth. What challenged me is that I really didn't want to make two different colored sides so I stared at this block for quite some time trying to imagine what was inside. I decided to nibble away at all sides/ends until I came to the point that I was happy with what I was seeing and had the appropriate size required to get going with drilling and glue up. Well, it turns out that I likely make something like 9-10 cuts before I found that perfect middle section I was after. I realize this may sound stupid to talk about but it's a big thing for me when I look at the finished results as I feel it makes a positive difference and was worth the effort. So what do you think about how the balance came out?

This new handle is attached to a Shanghai made cleaver which is a stout little guy, thick like a meat cleaver. The customer requested an oval wa made from African Blackwood with a G10 ferrule. I shaped the handle a tad different than what a typical oval is normally seen as because some woods (African Blackwood being one of them) don't show very well on rounded parts so what I did was to flatten the sides to give the wood some subtle bling effect. I also shaped the taper a bit... different in that I didn't flair it in all directions, well I did expect for the top which I left flat to the spine. You can notice this by looking at the rear end of the handle on the bottom side, it flairs out there. This gives a nice look when such a straight spine is found on a knife (like this cleaver) and also allows for a proper size fit up in both the front of the handle and for overall grip width. Sometimes it's the little things that make the biggest differences and I think this handle design shows this off well. The customer requested a sharpening of the blade but asked me to leave all marks/patina alone to preserve it's history, I presume.

Sukenari Nakiri in ZDP-189 with a new handle upgraded to a stabilized figured maple with an ivory/blond buffalo horn ferrule.

Here's a 225mm Wa Gyuto made from CPM-154 that I just finished up. The handle is made out of koa, buffalo horn, and nickel silver/G10 spacers. I like this one.