Decorative wooden knives made out of laminated wood

this are our decorative knives made out of ash wood and thermally treated ash wood

After a lot of wooden furniture projects I decided to take a break, so I played a few hours in the workshop, building a set of decorative wooden knives.

With all the play I can say that this project is not as simple as it seems to be. I used as much as possible woodworking tricks, to share them with you and in the same time to get in the end a beautiful set of knives.

I decided to build them out of ash wood. I wanted to combine ash wood and thermally treated ash wood. These two types of wood have the same texture, but different colors. Using them together brings a lot of charm to any wooden project, but mostly to decorative objects. You can see here how nice a set of square decorative trays can look, for the simple fact that I used this combination of wood colors

You can also find the video on our YouTube channel:

How we built a set of two decorative wooden knives out of laminated wood

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Besides the look, it was easier for me to chose this combination because I have a lot of small thermally treated ash scraps, left from an old project of deck reconditioning. These scraps were cut out from some decking boards, that’s why they have a lot of channels. But for my project they were very good, because I needed thin and narrow strips.

this is the thermally treated ash wood board from which I will cut thin stripes to build the wooden knives for our kids — The thermally treated ash wood board used for cutting thin stripes

Table of Contents

Building the laminated plank to make the knives

I started the project by building the 2,6 cm thick laminated plank. I wanted to use:

5 strips of 2 mm thick thermally treated ash wood
4 strips of 2 mm thick ash wood
1 strip of 2,2 cm thick ash wood

1. First of all, I took the thermally treated ash plank and I planed and squared both edges. I didn’t need to straighten its faces as it was already planed.

before cutting the thin strips of thermally treated ash wood, I squared all the faces of the board — Squaring the thermally treated ash wood board

Then I took a short piece of ash wood. For this one:

I planed one face

I planed one face of the ash wood board needed to build the simple wooden knives — Planing one face of the ash wood board

then I planed the other one with the thicknesser machine and I got it to 2,6 cm thick

I planed the other face of the ash wood board using the Metabo DH330 thicknesser — Planing the second face of the ash wood board

after that I planed it and squared its edges to be able to cut thin strips

I squared the ash wood board in order to cut thin strips for laminating — Squaring the ash wood board

2. I cut 5 mm thick ash wood strips with the bandsaw. I cut only one strip from each planed edge. Why? This way the very thin strips would have one face planed.

after planing the board, I cut a thin strip of thermally treated ash wood — Cutting the thin thermally treated ash wood strips

I cut the thin ash wood strips for the toy knives project — Cutting the thin ash wood strips

I cut the wider ash wood strip needed for laminating the board for this wooden knives project — Cutting the wider strip of ash wood

I repeated the process: I took both boards and squared their edges. After that I cut another set of strips. I repeated the process until I got all the pieces needed for lamination.

3. But that was not all. To be sure all pieces would be very well glued, I had to plane the second face of each thin strips. Metabo DH330 is not able to plan such thin pieces. So, I had to improvise:

I took a varnished beech wood panel. In order that the thin strips to slide well on it, I wiped the panel with furniture wax.

I used a narrow wooden panel to be able to plan the thin ash wood stripes — A beech wood panel used to help me planning the thin ash wood strips

I secured the panel to the tables of the planer thicknesser with a clamp, to be sure it wouldn’t move during the planing

I used one clamp to secure the panel to thetables of the Metabo DH330 thicknesser — I secured the panel to the tables of the thicknesser

I planed the other face of each thin strip. This way I’ve got them at a thickness of 2 mm.

I planed the thin strips of ash wood using the Metabo DH330 thicknesser and a panel secured to its table — Planing the thin strips of ash wood

This is a very useful trick. When you need to plan a thin piece, you can use a panel to rise the height of the thicknesser tables.

4. All the thin strips had the contact faces planed, so they could be well glued. I was sure that the laminated plank would be very strong. So, I arranged them and I applied the adhesive

I prepared the ash wood and the thermally treated ash wood board to laminate them — The ash wood strips prepared to be laminated

5. I tightened the laminated plank very well and I waited for the glue to dry.

I tightened the laminated wood board using four Cclamps — The laminated ash wood board tightened with C clamps

6. When the glue dried:

I planed one face of the new laminated plank

after the glue has dried, I planed the laminated ash wood board — Planning the faces of the laminated wood board

I planed the other face until I had got a 2 cm thick laminated plank

I planed the second face of the laminated ash wood board used for building the toy knives for our kids — Planing the second face of the laminated ash wood board

I cut the ends of the board, so in the end the laminated plank had a length of 37 cm

I cut the ends of the laminated wood boards at the length needed for this woodworking project — Cutting the ends of the laminated wood board

I cut it into two pieces (one laminated board for each decorative knife)

I cut the laminated wood board into two pieces to build two wooden knives — Cutting the laminated wood board into two pieces

These are the two laminated ash wood and thermally treated ash wood planks.

these are the two laminated ash wood boards used for building the diy wooden knives — The two laminated wood boards ready to be shaped for the knives project

The shape of the decorative wooden knives

Now, I was able to draw the shape of my decorative wooden knives. I chose that they should have the cutting edge on the light side of the knives.

After I drew the shape on one of the laminated boards, I cut the shape with the bandsaw. Then I drew the shape on the other board, using the first decorative knife as template.

this is the shape of the wooden knives before sanding their blades and building the handles — The shape of the wooden knives

I sanded the blade of the knives using the belt sander. For that, I first secured the belt sander to the workbench with clamps. This position of the sander allowed me to control very well the moves, so I couldn’t have sanded too much or too less.

I sanded the blade of the wooden knif using the belt sander secured on the worktable — Sanding the blade of the wooden knife

The guards of the wooden knives

I chose to make the guards of the knives out of thermally treated ash wood, so I can use the ash wood for the handles.

1. So, I took an 1 cm thick and 2 cm wide thermally treated ash wood board.

I measured and I marked 2 cm from one edge of the board
I marked the distance between the first and the last hole (2 cm)
I drilled 3 holes, inline, with a 5 mm diameter drill bit

I drilled 3 holes into the thermally treated ash wood board in order to build the wooden knives guards — Drilling 3 holes into the thermally treated ash wood board

2. Using a chisel, I removed the excess of wood between the drilled holes

I removed the excess of wood from the holes drilled into the guards of the wooden decorative knives — Removing the excess of wood

3. I needed small pieces of wood as guards for my knives, so I chose the best solution to cut the board safely:

first I cut the end of the board into two pieces of 1 cm thick, without finishing the cut along the plank

after drilling the holes and removing the excess of wood, I cut the board into two pieces — I cut the piece in half

then, I cut the other end of the board to get two pieces of 1 cm thick and 6 cm long

I cut the drilled thermally treated ash wood plank into two pieces for building the wooden knives guards — Cutting the small pieces of wood for the knives guards

These are the two thermally treated ash wood guards.

They fit very well in their position. I also engraved the initials of my boys’ names to be sure they won’t fight over which knive is who’s.

The way the decorative knives look before installing the wooden handles and sanding the guards — The decorative knives before installing the wooden handles

After checking that the two pieces of wood fit, I finely sanded them and I rounded their edges.

The wooden knives handles

For the handles, I used a 1,5 cm thick and 3,5 cm wide ash wood. I wanted to route a 1 cm depth channel in the middle of the board. But this kind of channel was almost impossible to be done. So:

I routed one channel on each face of the board (of 15 mm width and 5 mm depth). I used a top bearing router bit and the router guide to do it. I had to make two passes because the router bit had not such a diameter to make the slot from a single pass

I made the first pass with the router and the top bearing router bit in order to build the slots into the wooden handles — First pass with the router

i made a second pass to built the slot into the knives handles — Second pass with the router

In the end I’ve got the board as you see in the following picture.

the ash wood board with slots routed on both sides — The routed ash wood plank

then I cut the board into two pieces

I cut the routed ash wood plank into two pieces to build the wooden knives handles — Cutting the ash wood routed boards into two pieces

after that, I cut them again to get 4 pieces at 11 cm long (two pieces for each handle)

small routed pieces of ash wood for the decorative wooden knives handles — The small pieces of ash wood for the handles

I glued all the pieces together with the blades and I let the adhesive dry. Before gluing them I put some power tape on the blades to be sure that the glue wouldn’t stick on them.

I glued the wooden handles of the decorative knives and I tightened them using C clamps — Gluing the ash wood handles

The next day I took the knives and I drew the handles shape. I cut the shape with the bandsaw.

after I drew the shape of the knives handles, I cut them using the bandsaw — Cutting the shape of the handles with the bandsaw

To complete the project, I also wanted to insert some rivets. They had to be made out of thermally treated ash wood:

I built a wooden jig to make custom round sticks. For that I made a hole into a block of wood, I secured the block with a clamp to the workbench and a chisel to the block of wood.