Steak Knives Part 3 - Testing Finishes 2

Okay, so I discussed what finishes I selected, now this post is essentially just to show and discuss the results of my little finishing experiment.

As a reminder, this is what I did;

1. I sanded a piece of scrap of bubinga, leopardwood, wenge, Carribean rosewood, redheart, and paduak. and zebrawood to 800 grit.
2. I finished one side of each with Tru-Oil.
3. A few days later, sealed the other side with dewaxed shellac and used Tru-Oil.
4. Formby's on a piece of each.
5. Lastly, I took a final piece and tried the submersion technique.

Results after the jump:

Steak Knives Part 2 - Testing Finishes 1

Since I've embarked on the adventure of making knife handles, I realized that applying a finish to a knife handle poses different challenges than I'm used to. First off, I hit up The Dusty Life for some suggestions.


A knife handle is different from something like a table top in a couple big practical ways.

1. It's going to be *handled* as in, subjected to both being in a hand (so needs to feel good there) as well as the wear, tear, and natural oils that are present on a human hand.
2. It's going to be near food and also will get wet when you wash it.

This means I needed to do a little more research.

Rubbing a Finish

Rubbing a finish is an optional step that "finishes" the finish. If you zoom in to a microscopic level, a finish is rough (Note: "finish" here could be shellac, varnish, polyurethane, etc..., in my case it was polyurethane). Once the finish cures, ideally a few weeks if not a month, and becomes as hard as it's going to get, you can sand it and smooth that roughness out.