One of my best friends got married last week. I’d been planning for about 5 months what I wanted to give him and his wife for a gift. After being inspired by other LJ knife projects I decided that I’d make them a knife set and knife block. The blades are “Damascus steel” from Janz knife supply and the handles are African hardwood, sanded to 2000 grit and then with 3 coats of hemp oil and two coats of paste wax. Knife block is birds-eye maple with African hardwood, finished with Danish oil. The knife handles were epoxied onto the knife tang and then I roughed out the shape on the bandsaw (BTW, hitting the knife tang with the bandsaw blade = buy new bandsaw blade. I won’t tell you how I know this…). I refined the handle shape with a belt and spindle sander and then hand sanded the handles. It was a satisfying project and turned out good, but I’ve vowed to never do it again, for the amount of sanding I had to do!! Sorry about the crappy pics, I took them late the night before I wrapped up the gift.