A thread to reveal fixed blade hidden tangs...

PocketKnifeJimmy said:
Here are two pics I found online showing the Buck 120 General & Buck 119 Special, and a cutaway revealing their tang/handle construction...


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1. Any clue if the handle components are affixed using epoxy or some other adhesive? Or is it held together mechanically?

2. Is the pin holding the pommel onto the tang peened or epoxied into place? Or can it be driven out with a punch and some light taps?

The idea of replacing phenolic handles with leather washers has burrowed into my mind. Is the process as simple as tapping out the pin, pulling off the pommel and phenolic, replacing with stacked leather washers, then tapping everything back into place? Or will I need to cut everything off with a Dremel and fabricate a new pommel? Please talk me out of picking up a vintage 119 or 105 and butchering it in vain.
 
oldmanwilly said:
1. Any clue if the handle components are affixed using epoxy or some other adhesive? Or is it held together mechanically?

2. Is the pin holding the pommel onto the tang peened or epoxied into place? Or can it be driven out with a punch and some light taps?

The idea of replacing phenolic handles with leather washers has burrowed into my mind. Is the process as simple as tapping out the pin, pulling off the pommel and phenolic, replacing with stacked leather washers, then tapping everything back into place? Or will I need to cut everything off with a Dremel and fabricate a new pommel? Please talk me out of picking up a vintage 119 or 105 and butchering it in vain.
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Well, I'll let 'Buck' tell you more about how their 119 Special and 120 General knives are made, (they're basically the same knives, with blade length being the only difference)...


Based on what is shown in the video above, Buck uses glue and a pinned on pommel. The assembly seems well thought out and well done, but it also means permanency is their goal. Can it be disassembled?... Yeah, with the right tools and some "handyman skills", but it will likely entail a decent amount of effort to do it.
I can't imagine that your idea hasn't been tried and accomplished before by someone out there 😊
As long as a person is confident in their skills to perform such a project, I don't see any reason why it couldn't be done.
 
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PocketKnifeJimmy PocketKnifeJimmy ,

Thank you for the video. I shouldn't be surprised that they use glue to help hold everything together. That makes it more than an easy afternoon project (for me at least), but probably still worth a try.
 
oldmanwilly said:
PocketKnifeJimmy PocketKnifeJimmy ,

Thank you for the video. I shouldn't be surprised that they use glue to help hold everything together. That makes it more than an easy afternoon project (for me at least), but probably still worth a try.
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Still not hard.
Find the pin and you can drill it out, bust the phenolic off in your vise like a walnut in a nutcracker .
Then you can get the fittings off without too much trouble.

The hard part is locating and properly drilling the pin, always a bit of guess work on my part and I wasn't very successful one time.
 
Any ever rehandled one of these budget friendly TRAMONTINA Bowies ?

I just scored this one on Ebay pretty cheap ( Tram makes good machetes, so I figure with decent steel it should be a good project knife )


The plastic scales enclose the tang, so I have no clue what the tang is gonna look like when I remove them.
 
Hickory n steel said:
Any ever rehandled one of these budget friendly TRAMONTINA Bowies ?

I just scored this one on Ebay pretty cheap ( Tram makes good machetes, so I figure with decent steel it should be a good project knife )


The plastic scales enclose the tang, so I have no clue what the tang is gonna look like when I remove them.
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I wish I could help you, but I have no idea on what that tang may look like under that handle.
If I had to guess, I would imagine it will have a similar profile tang to what the Ontario Kukri knife has in the post above.

I am curious to see what you find when you remove that handle... Please share that with us when you do 👍
 
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These two photos I found online show the scales off of the Cold Steel Wild West Bowie. While this model is not a hidden tang knife, the scales being removed shows it to have a skeletonized tang...


 
PocketKnifeJimmy said:
I wish I could help you, but I have no idea on what that tang may look like under that handle.
If I had to guess, I would imagine it will have a similar profile tang to what the Ontario Kukri knife has in the post above.

I am curious to see what you find when you remove that handle... Please share that with us when you do 👍
Click to expand...
Yeah from what I've found I believe it's going to be a standard hidden tang , likely full length.
The one post I found from someone who had rehandled one simply remembered it being " pretty long ".


I was kind of expecting something like you'd get with a rubber molded handle where it's often like a full tang but a bit oddly shaped.
 
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