Heartbroken...

I honestly had no idea that salvaging and repairing it would even be an option, so I started cutting into the area where the knot is held already, using a Dremel and cutoff wheel. I got about 3/4 of the way through when it dawned on me that this won't release the epoxy, and I would still probably damage the knot before I got it out of the handle. That's when I posted here.

So here I am with a handle that probably would have been very easily repaired using the sand and epoxy method, but with an ugly slash in it's face because I didn't ask first.

I am so very, very angry at myself for not asking first, and cutting later.

Thank you, everyone, for the input. I'm going to go bang my head against the wall for a little while...

I honestly had no idea that salvaging and repairing it would even be an option, so I started cutting into the area where the knot is held already, using a Dremel and cutoff wheel. I got about 3/4 of the way through when it dawned on me that this won't release the epoxy, and I would still probably damage the knot before I got it out of the handle. That's when I posted here.

So here I am with a handle that probably would have been very easily repaired using the sand and epoxy method, but with an ugly slash in it's face because I didn't ask first.

I am so very, very angry at myself for not asking first, and cutting later.

Thank you, everyone, for the input. I'm going to go bang my head against the wall for a little while...

Chris, don't bang too hard because I think you'll be at the back of a very long line.  I think many of us have made the same mistake of asking questions after rather than before.  Perhaps there is still a diamond that will come from this.

All may not be lost.  The gap can be filled using some wood filler and the handle repaired and then a good coat of paint will hide all the evidence.  The EverReady 200 is too nice a handle to just give up on.

We've all been there brother!

Years ago as an apprentice carpenter I had made a mistake. I was making some box frames to go around openings in a q-deck roof of a school we were building. I had taken measurements on the roof then went down on the ground to scavenge the lumber I needed (shorts) and cut and assemble. I got help and hauled them all up on the roof and went to place them and one of them just dropped through the opening. It wasn't supposed to do that. I'd screwed up the measurements on one of the boxes (thankfully just one) and I was beating myself up about it. This old journeyman came over and told me to get over it, he said "show me a man who's never made a mistake and I'll show you a man who's never done anything" I took some comfort from those words, then he said "now fix it you @#%#, and don't do that again" Measure twice cut once. No doubt that mistakes can be painful and sometimes costly but thats how we learn from them.