I may need to post a picture but I'll try to explain. I'm charging my digital camera just in case.
This cutlery is cast stainless steel??? The handles have jack knife style finish that appears was poured into the handles and then ground to fit the shape of the casting. This flat finish black 'plastic resin' is starting to crack. I would like to remove it and replace it with wood but that would be difficult. None of the castings are flat or uniform. Shaping wood would be very time consuming and tough to attach. I'm open to real wood suggestions though.
I'm hoping to find a more durable and nicer material that can be shaped into the handles like putty and then buffed to a nice durable finish when dried.
I have no idea what materials are available to use if any.
your question takes the cake for the wackiest "project" I have ever heard anyone on the Wreck muse about. You can't be serious! You are gonna screw around with 60 knife handles?? ? Why not buy a different set or buy the same set and keep them out of the dishwasher, if that's what ruined the first set. You could use the time that would have been devoted to your knife handles to, say, curing cancer or solving the world's hunger problems...
On 25 Jul 2003, bay area dave spake unto rec.woodworking:
Nobody's going to argue with your experience, dave.
Good options, all, dave. Question answered. Problem solved.
After reading your post, I hope he devotes his life to figuring out why some people can't prevent their heads from lodging in the nether end of their alimentary canals.
Well, he did come to a woodworking newsgroup and rejected using wood on the handles. Sounds like a knifemaking newsgoup would have been a better place to go.
You must be joking. I seen people put more time and money into scrolling a trivet to set pots on. I seen people spend weeks carving a couple trinkets for a shelf. I've seen people spend money and hundreds of hours making ONE knife. I would like to see how much money you are making on your projects.
It's a HOBBY, I like this cast set of cutlery. I just want to improve the handles. I would love to change them from black to maybe a jade green or marble green.
Then you must not have been around here very long. : )
People come up with wacky ideas every day. To me, personally, the idea of using expensive highly-figured woods for a bench top is wacky, if not worse. But to some people, it's a great idea. But there are plenty of people with TRULY wacky ideas!
Wanting to make some knife handles is a great idea. When your company's over having steak, and someone says "Wow, these knives are really cool!", you can say "Yeah, I made the handles myself." ; )
This is not expense stuff at all but I love the weight and the feel of cast material. I just want to replace the handle material with something nicer. Resin impregnated woods would be great but fastening them to the casting would be tough. Even the pins are part of the casting so using wood would be a bitch.
I'm posting pictures in the binary ww group and will post a link.
If the knives are any good, they should be kept away from the dishwasher. Same for pots and pans. They shouldn't even come in contact with soap or detergent.
It's an eight place setting that I use everyday. If I can make some nice handles I wouldn't mind hand washing them but my preference is the dishwasher.
That's why I'm asking around, to see if there is any nifty new malible materials that I could use.
I never put my cast pots or good knives in the dishwasher.
They simply won't work or be cost and time effective. I need something innovative. A material you wouldn't normally associate with a spoon handle. Perhaps a marine wood filler or something similar.
What you want is called Milliput, here in the UK, you may find it elsewhere - model makers use it and it's about right for this job, no idea how dishwasher proof as I've never had one to try it in - but it's pretty tough old stuff.
Basically, it's like two sticks of modeling clay or plasticene. Two part epoxy time here, twist it and roll it to get complete mix up. Then add to object, and smooth as desired.
After it cures, you could drill a hole in it, and tap a thread into it if you should so desire! You can saw it and it sands easy, yet it's tough.
Comes in coarse, medium and fine blends, is fairly expensive, but not really exorbitant given it's fairly amazing properties..
I'd consider making a rough shaping mould to impress it into rough shape first if I was doing it. Maybe copy from the original before you disassemble them?
When you got the shape, and it's cured (couple of hours normally gets it all the way through in even a really thick section and in winter) you can spray paint it with cellulose based car touch up paint if you should so desire. You can used a wetted finger to smooth it as it sets too!
You can heat it to speed setting - For this I coat it in flour, and throw it in a poly bag, then seal the bag (tie the top) and dump the whole thing into a bowl of fairly hot water. The flour stops it sticking to the bag, and sands off pretty quick once you start to finish it for paint.
I'd get hold of a pack and play with it some and see if it's what you need here. My guess it is exactly right for the job. I'd do it, but it's not a trivial project.
For custom made objects which are more or less one offs, it's totally without peer I've found. I've used it extensively to make handles for custom joysticks which were fitted to the individuals hand shape - if you've ever seen what a serious computer games player can do to a joystick as they do their thing, then you'll realise exactly how tough this stuff is! ;O)
I constantly had a fair number of back orders from local players, so I must have been doing something right I guess! I reckon using this stuff was the trick! ;O) I used to coat their hand in flour and the goop too, shove both into poly bag and get the to hold still and squeeze these "sausages" in a bowl of moderately hot water for as long as they could take it (5 minutes or so) and it had set to exactly their shape if they behaved as requested! Later I'd saw off access ports and drill holes for switches and run channels for wires with a dremel. I then drilled screw holes and tapped them out into the raw material to secure the plates and hatches back onto the stick, filling the kerf voids with stuck on felt on the mating surfaces.
I only rambled a little so you can see exactly why I reckon what you want from it should be plain sailing! ;O)
(Wow, I just looked and they have loads of advice very similar to that which I gave you, and this did not exist all those years ago when I found this stuff out by trial and error, largely error too!)
Been too long for me to make any sensible suggestion there.
I've only ever painted it, but I know it sorta gets on well with water, ie you can (could!) make it thinner by wetting the surface, so it'd smooth out better, so maybe water paint compatible type dyes are going to be right with it, but you'd have to experiment with it to get what you personally would like.
Personally I'd use auto touch up paint; primer, base coat, top coat and lacquer of course - if done right you will not believe the finish it can get you on this stuff! It's like glass and 100% blemish free too! Only time I've ever seen paint like it in fact - which was a big shock since it came from a can, and I'm a badger and devillbiss guy for the most part.
I asked a good bit back for ideas on making a new handle for my machete. I never did make anything out of wood. I just don't have the right tools to cut something to fit the complex tang on this thing and have it come out right.
Instead, I took my inspiration from some sword-making sites. I had some
12-gauge romex that was too short to be useful. I stripped the sheathing off of it, and then stripped the insulation off of the wires within, yielding three longish (10' maybe) bare copper wires. I clamped one end of a wire in my bench vise, then walked out into the yard and wound the thing very tightly and carefully around the tang. Repeated until I had wound them all on, and then I soldered the loose end.
It's not quite as comfortable as the original plastic, but you wouldn't believe what an *incredible* difference it made. The machete was well-balanced before, but now it's as light and nimble as a butcher knife even though it's more than three feet long. Having the extra weight in the handle gives it a lot more oomph too. I can lop through 3" pine branches with the thing in one swipe now.
So anyway, there's a thought for the OP's 60 knife handles. Get some copper wire. Thinner gauge than the stuff I used. Probably 16 or smaller I'd say. Wrap away. Dishwasher safe. There might be galvanic reaction problems, and the stuff would tend to get greenish down in the cracks over time (unless the dishwasher detergent eats that stuff off, which it might...) but they would look sort of cool I think, and it would be a hell of a lot easier than trying to manufacture plastic parts without the right equipment.
I guess for food stuff you'd want to think about the copper alloy. Make sure it isn't something that's mixed with arsenic or some damn thing. Google away.
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.