A few questions from a newbie

[NCSlice]

Looking good man. I'm interested in the leather situation. Sorry about your back, I have issues as well and am still undergoing treatment but that's a long story.
Keeping my eye on this thread, thanks for updating!

 

[TravisH]

Yeah I did drop to actually a 150 grit which really softened the pitting up.

I've used 80grit on a badly gouged blade but it was a thick blade with a flat grind.
On your large one, I'd be afraid to go that low in fear of sanding off those delicate grind lines.
On the smaller one, maybe, depends on how thick the blade is.

I restored that extreme hard-use blade to a 1000grit near mirror finish but it took at over 16 hours of hand-sanding. I don't think your back would appreciate that.

 

[NeoWolf]

LOL! I am pretty sure it was the hours of sanding that started the spasms in my back. Took 2 days of muscle relaxers before it let up. So now I am trying to work in shorter spurts. Still feel it after but its not near as bad.

 

[NeoWolf]

Well I finally got it striped down. Once I started to try and clean the leather things went downhill fast. So I decided to tear it down.....little did I realize what I was getting into.

There was a pin in it but when I started to try and remove it, it mushroomed inside the pommel and would not move. So I tried to carefully drill it out......mistake. The pommel is either aluminum or a very soft metal. I Finally had to work a coping saw blade into the pommel and saw the pin out from the inside. Here is where I am at.....

So now comes my problem......

The tang has been......um, mangled? Looks as if it broke but I am not sure. I thought that these knives had a threaded section on them???

So here is the pommel and the guard......

They leave much to be desired.....and need replacing but I do not think that the handle kit from Kabar is going to work here because of the end being gone so I have been looking, to no avail to find something.

Anyone have any ideas?

 

[zzyzzogeton]

The threaded tangs were only for the first batch made by Camillus shipped Feb 1943. That pommel is a "post-production modification" possibly after the original pommel snapped off.

Are you intending to re-use the pommel you took off or did you get a replacement pommel from Kabar? If you are wanting to replace the "old" pommel with a replacement flat pommel, I'd carefully cut down the tang tip to fit into the slot on the new pommel, necking it down to just fit into the slot with the pommel pin hole lining up with the hole in the tang. You can always cut off any excess tang sticking out through the slot. Your handle might end up being a tad shorter than "original" but it'll look just fine.

 

[sac troop]

If it were me, I'd have the hole in the end of the tang welded over and just file it back smooth. That way I could just drill a new hole to attach the new pommel. Looks like the tang on your knife was rounded at the end and threaded. This happened with some of the earlier knives and didn't prove to be the best way.

Here's some dimensions from Camillus for the Military specification knives that may help.