a question about a bone handle

D

doesntmattermuch

Joined
Sep 18, 2006
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im pretty new to this whole knife making thing and even newer to the forum but anyway here goes. i want to put a hidden tang bone handle on my knife, i have sevral pieces of deer leg bone that are almost exactly the right size. but heres my problem i dont know how to fill in the rather large area between the tang and the inside walls of the bone. obviously i could fill it with a crapton of epoxy but thats just a tiny bit too messy and too expensive for my tastes. are there any kind of fillers i could use and then epoxy the bone into place or should i go and try to find better bones or just slab it? any comments or help you can provide would be appreciated, thanks
 
Fit a piece of wood inside the cavity with epoxy, then drill the wood for the tang.
 
How big are these bones! It should not take a lot of epoxy to fill the void. A $3 syringe of epoxy should do a batch of handles. Fill the void with the epoxy and let it cure well. Then do the work on the blades and drill the tang holes as if the bone was a solid piece of wood. Makes clean up a lot easier than trying to fill it with the blade in there.Make sure the bones are well dried and cleaned before using them.
 
I use "Bondo" (auto body putty) to fill hollow horns, then drill to fit tang. It is very strong and the weight feels good after filling it.
 
thanks all i especially like that auto putty idea. im sure this thread is dead by now but if anyone else has any ideas please post them
 
Doesntmattermuch;
One note on the deer bones, if/when you sell the knives, check the game laws in the state they are being sold in. Here in Wisconsin I almost got into trouble by having a knife with a deer bone handle on it for sale but a buddy showed me the regulation as I was setting up. The only deer bones we can sell here is the skull with the hornes attached. I was lucky on that one. Long statement but anyway. They do make really nice handles and, go figure, I can still make them and own them in WI, I just can't sell them.
Good luck
 
Good point CW Doc, the Dnr here in WI can impose very severe penalties for selling parts of game animals without a special permit(and it can take years to get that permit if the person at the dnr decides that they don't want to be helpful)
 
been filling them with epoxy for years now.50-75 cents worth of epoxy isnt much.As for being messy,done with some thought there is very little mess,and what mess you get is easily cleaned off.
Bruce
 
I try never to heat the epoxy,now if it is close to freezing weather in the shop I might.I mix in a dixie cup and bend the top to make a spout and pour the epoxy in at a angle so it runs down the edge of the hole,this will fill the whole cavity up.
Bruce
 
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