After the sanding drum, I used a wooden dowel with sandpaper wrapped around it to finish sand everything. From start to finish (sanding drum and hand sanding) it took about four hours per piece. My hands and fingers were sore and cramped up at the end of each session and I could only do one per day.
 

Here is a close-up of the hand area. It all blends very good now and it's all nice and smooth.
 

Looks like it's time to do a little clean up on the floor. The bottom of the milling machine is 4" tall just to give you an idea of how big a mess I have.
 

Ok back to the project: notice the hand doesn't sit flush as the walnut is higher. This might be good enough for some people but I don't like it. That means I'll need to re-cut this area so it sits flat.
 

Like I said before, two of the hands were like this so I set-up the mill again and re-cut this area one more time.
 

Here is the foot that didn't fit like I wanted so I'll need to address this one too.
 

Just like above, I clamped our guy so I could work on the feet and re-cut both sides. This didn't take long and it came out good.
 

The last piece to be glued was the shield. I used some grip-type clamps that had long enough jaws to reach around the shield for this. And these clamps have rubber jaws so they wouldn't scratch or dent the wood. The clamps were so long they wanted to tip the knife holder over so I propped them up on a piece of wood clamped in my bench vise. Again, whatever works you know.
 

All three knife holders pretty much look the same so I'll show you one of them. I used mineral oil on every surface (inside the slots too) which really brought out the grain. I didn't want to use any stains or clears on this because it's a food based item, like a cutting board would be. The last thing I would want is a small piece of toxic clear coat sticking to a knife and then finding it's way into some food. And if something happens to it, like a scratch for instance, it can be sanded out and then just re-apply more mineral oil and you're good to go.

At this point the knife holders are finished and just need the knives added. As you read earlier Tracey's knives are good to go except for the one I don't have (chefs). I don't know of a way to get that one knife to my house without her knowing about it so I'm depending on her boyfriends measurement for that. As for the other two? Well....I struggled with that question for awhile, but then decided to split the difference with them. What I mean is, I bought one set of knives for Tony's because I'm pretty sure he already has a nice set as he likes to cook. As for Matt and Angela, I have no idea what they own so I thought I'd do something different for her. Are you thinking what I'm thinking? Find out on the next page!