Brisa Skinner vs Lauri Skinner knife build Part I.

My first attempt to build a knife was with a Lauri Skinner carbon blade, and while the process was fun and taught me quite a bit – I have never been happy with the finished product. I’ve made a couple other knives from pre-made blades since, and thought I would take another attempt at a better version of this type of knife.

I selected a Brisa Skinner blade, from Thompson’s Scandinavian Knife Supply, comparable but slightly larger in width and length, a nickel bolster and end cap. I had a piece of leftover moose antler, and I had some old cherry lumber saved. I save offcuts from woodworking and also had some random pieces that looked almost like white oak but not quite.

The first step was removing the rough black finish left behind from Brisa. Since this was the most tedious part, I wanted to get it over with. First 220 sandpaper to remove the black layer, then 400 grit > 800 grit > 1000 grit > 1200 grit > 1500 grit. After that, I tried both some Turtle polishing compound (which is really for auto paint more than metal) and then also some Turtle Chrome Polish. Its hard to say which worked better or if they were even different, but I was also doing this by hand and not a buffing wheel. Feeling like I skipped a step between 1,500 grit and this polish, I picked up some Dremel 421 polishing compound which is specifically for removing scratches and polishing metal. It worked pretty well. As you can see in the photos, while polished – I left some of the unevenness and indentations left from the blade maker’s process. I think with some patina over time, the effect will be interesting.