Kathi's Monster

My wife’s cousin had expressed quite a bit of interest in my knives, so during a joint vacation in the summer of 2009 I sat down with her to design a knife together. She wanted a large chef’s knife and after sketching out the overall profile requested a stainless bolster. I have struggled with metal bolsters and guards in the past but that was clearly what she wanted and it was going to be her knife, so I agreed. Looking through pictures of my previous knives, she spotted the cocobolo handle on #18 and immediately declared “I want that one!”.

Because the overall knife she wanted was longer than my furnace, I set about coming up with a design for a detachable handle. Since I rarely know when to stop, I also decided to try and not leave any fasteners showing (a decision I regretted during most of the construction phase of this knife). All the major parts of the knife are shown above including the 303 stainless butt cap and bolster, the 316 stainless handle tang (3/8″ round rod), and the cocobolo handle (solid block with a 3/8″ hole bored through the length).

After sliding the handle block into place and capturing it with the screw-on butt cap, the knife was fully assembled, but not yet very pretty. I don’t think I’ve ever been more scared about screwing up a knife late in the sequence than I was grinding down the handle on this one.

I can’t claim that the handle grinding went perfectly, but I avoided any major screw-ups and was very happy with the overall result.