This bread knife, made by John Deakin & Sons of Sheffield, must be at least 80 years old, based on the fact that the company ceased manufacturing in the late 1930’s. It could be well over 100 for all I know. The handle has seen better days. I think I have probably already glued this back on at least once before. The dishwasher and washing up bowl have not treated it well. This time I thought I’d do a better job. Maybe the best way to have done it would have been to make a complete new handle, but I preferred to keep the original. I don’t know what wood was used to make it. I’ll assume it’s Lignum Vitae, or something equally as durable, for it to have lasted all this time fundamentally intact.

I’m sure that a professional restorer would make some sort of wooden insert to repair this handle. I wanted a relatively quick, strong and long-lasting fix, so I chose to fill the void in the handle with epoxy resin!

I cleaned up the tang of the knife using a wire brush to remove any loose rust

.. and eeked-out as much debris as I could from the handle

I prepared a mix of JB-Weld, epoxy

I masked the handle to prevent too much epoxy getting on the wood

I poured, or rather dripped, the epoxy mix into the handle and reinserted the blade.

I clamped the blade in the vice and placed a weight on top of the handle while the epoxy cured.

Several hours later, I removed the masking tape and sanded the base of the handle

I treated the handle with some much-needed oil and wax mixture, which brought out the beautiful twisted grain pattern on the wood

Hopefully it will now last another 100 years

Tools used

  • Wire brush
  • Screwdriver
  • Credit card

Materials used

  • JB-WELD
  • 120-grit sandpaper
  • Brandon Bespoke Wax Oil Treatment
  • 36mm Frogtape masking tape
  • Paper towel

Gallery

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