How I made a DIY wooden handle for a Japanese pull saw

A while ago, a friend gave me a couple of Japanese pull saw blades.

I made a maple handle for one of them.

First of all I made a couple of templates for the handle, out of a piece of cardboard. 

This is not a traditional Japanese design. I wanted to combine a few Greek tradition elements in it.

I then cut a piece of maple in half on my table saw. I completed the cut with two passes.

I cleaned up the saw marks with a hand plane.

I then traced the template on one piece. I used the router with a straight bit to make the female part of the handle, that receives the blade.

I then cut both pieces of the handle with my jigsaw.

I drilled two holes that would receive bamboo pins. The pins prevented the pieces from moving around during the glue up process.

I then glued everything up, using two part epoxy glue.

I used a flush trim saw to cut the pins flush.

I shaped the handle using a spokeshave, cylindrical rasps, triangular rasp and flat rasps.

I removed as much material as I could with the spokeshave. This tool is really fast and leaves an awesome surface behind,  but I could not reach all the areas with it.

Before shaping I used a pencil to mark the areas from where I would remove material. I begun by removing much material with the rasp and then removed the rasp’s marks with a finer file. I finished shaping with sand paper. I used 100 to 320 grit.

I finished the handle with two coats of clear water based varnish while sanding between coats.

At this point the handle was ready and I am really happy with the way it came out!