I know there are other knife blocks on the site and this one is by no means anything fancy compared to some of the other projects out there. It’s mostly a simple block of wood with a bunch of the back routed out.
The two knives in the picture are from a friend of mine that makes custom knives. I felt they were to pretty to put into a knife drawer or hide in a block. The steel he uses is ASB-L. Which means that for the size of the knives, they’re rather light in weight. The one on the right is a 9" chef knife that he stretches to 9.5" and the one on the left is a nakiri. It was his first time making that style of knife (and my first time using one). They both cut extremely well.
This is test piece number two. The first design I tried to make something to house one of the Ikea magnetic knife holders. The problem with that method is that the magnets on that holder are not powerful enough to hold anything through the wood.
This is v2 of my holder. I switched to stand alone magnets.
The magnets are large 1.26" ones. There’s 2 in each of the holes. This provides ample force to hold the knives to the front of the board. There’s about 4mm of wood between the knives and the magnets. The magnets are a good friction fit in the wood, but I’ll add a dab of epoxy to make sure they stay attached.
The larger slot fits an 1/8" thick piece of steel that will be screwed to the wall. The two smaller cutouts are recesses for the head of the mounting screws. The force of the magnets hold the block to the mount.
One of the joys of this project was cutting the steel bar. I got to practice some more with my large mill and used it to cut the stock to perfect length and to drill the holes in it. The mounting plate has paint drying on it, but I’ll get pictures later.
I’ll cut the final piece from a nicer species of wood later this week. I’ll take better care of centering the bit on the board and making sure it’s parallel to the gantry. The test piece is a little ‘off’. I plan on sealing the wood with the same food grade mineral spirits that you use on cutting boards. It should protect the wood and not damage the knives. My wife will be designing something to burn on the front with the laser.
