I had a ZY430 that I had initially picked up for honing practice but hasn't seen a stone in a while, so I decided to try my hand at doing some mod work. I did take a couple of pics along the way, but didn't document it nearly as much as I should have.
I made the mistake of doing most of the shaping before thinning the spine and the tip ticked on the belt sander as I was doing the thinning and took a chunk out of the toe at the edge, which meant that if I wanted to continue I would have to make it a shorty. Since I don't have a stockpile of GD's or ZY's(yet) I went the shorty route, and this was the result after thinning the spine
And this is what happened when I wasn't paying attention and let the tang ride onto the belt sander lol.
In an attempt to at least mitigate the obviousness of my stupidity I carved a thumbnotch and tried to curve the tang around it. I was mostly successful, but the face didn't(and still doesn't) quite match the back. My BIL had gifted me some tiger maple, black walnut, and purple heart recently, and I went with purple heart for the scales.
After starting to set the initial bevel I realized that I had thinned the spine too much, so I had to reduce the width of the blade. I brought it down to a 5/8 and hoped that that would be enough. It took forever to set the bevel, but I chipped away at it here and there for a few days and finally got it to where I wanted it, then took it back to the belt sander to remove the massive hone wear lol.
After I finished on the belt sander it was time for the final shaping. I pulled out the dremel and did that, then took the deeper scratches out of it with sanding drums. Once that was done I grabbed some wet/dry sandpaper and did the rest by hand.
During all of the work on the blade I was coating the scales with tung oil every day or two. Once I had 6 coats on I let it sit for a couple more days, then finished them with Ren Wax. Final results to follow.
I made the mistake of doing most of the shaping before thinning the spine and the tip ticked on the belt sander as I was doing the thinning and took a chunk out of the toe at the edge, which meant that if I wanted to continue I would have to make it a shorty. Since I don't have a stockpile of GD's or ZY's(yet) I went the shorty route, and this was the result after thinning the spine
And this is what happened when I wasn't paying attention and let the tang ride onto the belt sander lol.
In an attempt to at least mitigate the obviousness of my stupidity I carved a thumbnotch and tried to curve the tang around it. I was mostly successful, but the face didn't(and still doesn't) quite match the back. My BIL had gifted me some tiger maple, black walnut, and purple heart recently, and I went with purple heart for the scales.
After starting to set the initial bevel I realized that I had thinned the spine too much, so I had to reduce the width of the blade. I brought it down to a 5/8 and hoped that that would be enough. It took forever to set the bevel, but I chipped away at it here and there for a few days and finally got it to where I wanted it, then took it back to the belt sander to remove the massive hone wear lol.
After I finished on the belt sander it was time for the final shaping. I pulled out the dremel and did that, then took the deeper scratches out of it with sanding drums. Once that was done I grabbed some wet/dry sandpaper and did the rest by hand.
During all of the work on the blade I was coating the scales with tung oil every day or two. Once I had 6 coats on I let it sit for a couple more days, then finished them with Ren Wax. Final results to follow.