Success! Second times a charm! Stone scales for a Bread Knife

After the disaster that was my first attempt at cutting scales for a bread knife - with the scales breaking right before gluing them onto the knife, I went back to the drawing board with a few extra slabs, ones that were big enough for the scales, and ones that went under far more scrutiny looking for cracks and weak spots.

I ended up deciding on a couple of slabs of a yellowy orange jasper which had a lot of dendrites and other interesting looking inclusions:

Marked out slab and Pre Form Scale Cabochon

Although the colours in this piece are not particularly striking, the pastally colourations are quite interesting, especially with the dendrites running through the yellow banding. I am pretty sure this is a jasper of some description, however its origins are unknown to me.

Pre Form cabochons for Stone Knife Scales

I was feeling pretty good about this material right from the start when I cut out the preform shapes. It seemed pretty solid and there was no visible weak spots. There were a couple of small cracks which I was keeping an eye on, but they were of no real concern.

Stone Bread Knife Scale

After a couple of hours of grinding, cutting and polishing, the resulting large scales came up with a really nice shiny finish. The small cracks did not give way and the colours in the material ended up being nice and soft. Certainly a couple of cabs to be quite proud of in their own right!

Bread Knife with Stone Scales

All that was left to do was to glue the scales onto the knife! As was the case with my Swiss Army Knife project, the glue I used on this piece was Araldite, which is a 2 part epoxy glue. Prior to glueing, all I did was scuff the metal handle up a bit with a 600 girt carbide sand paper to give the glue something to hold onto.








I am extremely happy with the result of the project, although it was quite a frustrating process. Obviously there was the major issue of the first set of scales breaking as I was about to start gluing them onto the knife, but also the size of the stones themselves was a little bit awkward. Its because of this that I am really looking forward to cutting the scales for the Filleting Knife which I also purchased as the handles will be smaller and more manageable.

Here are a few more photos of the finished knife:

Bread Knife with Stone Scales

A closer photo of the scales

Bread Knife with Stone Scales

Top of the knife handle

Bread Knife with Stone Scales

Underside of the handle











The sun wasn't out when I took these photos, so they aren't brilliant. I am pretty confident that my Mum will love this knife when I give it to her for Christmas! Stop on over at my Facebook page - Let me know what you think of it!

Until next time!