- Joined
- Jul 7, 2014
- Messages
- 2,021
1/13/2016 - I decided to rename the thread and use it as more of an ongoing place to show the fruits of my hobby. Knives I have worked on will be scattered throughout the thread. Thanks for looking!
I have found a new hobby in finding Imperial "clam shell" assembled knives, cleaning them up, and dressing them up with more premium handle materials. The blades on most of the Imperials are thin carbon steel, and great slicers. The clam shell design takes the entire sides of the knife - scales, bolsters, and even faux pins, and clamps them over the liners. This way, the entire side of the knife can be made with a very thin stainless steel or even some type of tin. Then, plastics are used to imitate bone, or mother of pearl, or acrylic, or whatever else. There is generally a clamp visible on the top of the bolster, and another visible on the bottom end of the knife handle. This is duplicated for each side.
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I have a thread going in the tinkering forum, but I wanted to show off my results, such as they are, here as well. First off let me say this is the first knife tinkering I have ever attempted outside of standard sharpening. I did all of this work with a hand belt sander on a bench vise, a dremel tool, and a ball peen hammer.
Here is a before - my father found the knife on the floor of the tool closet. In this pic I have already removed the old clamshell scales.
What a mess. What was there to lose? Here is the end result!
I salvaged the internals and fabricated new nickel silver bolsters and pins. The scales are a dyed stabilized buckeye burl. The original knife turns out to be an Imperial Barlow.
It has its flaws - most notable of which is that I swapped blade positions, putting the pen blade behind the main blade. I did not notice this until I was practically ready to take photos. I did not have the heart to undo all I had done, so I ground a nail nick on the other side of the pen blade. The other most obvious flaw is one side of one of my bolsters didnt get great flow of solder, so there is a visible gap. Other than that my complaints are mostly around nit picking the finish or a very small gap here or there.
On the good side though, I have a sturdy and smooth working knife with some family history behind it back in good working order. Another big thing - I can appreciate all that much more the craftsmanship that goes into any hand made knife. Hats off to the guys who put up some of the stuff in the knifemakers area!
I left the finish of the knife looking more worn than glossy. Part of that was me working with the skill I had though. I buffed the stablized buckeye as much as I could with the tools that I have, but I do wish it was a shinier finish. I had trouble getting a smooth polish on the metal with the tools available to me, so I opted for more of brushed metal satin. I gave the blades a light sanding on the belt sander too to give the same satin look there. However, I intentionally did not remove all of the aging and character from the original steel. The blades open smoothly and easily, and they sharpened up extremely well with that old carbon steel.
Some pics
If anyone is interested in seeing more of the process, as poorly as I documented it, check out the thread here
I have found a new hobby in finding Imperial "clam shell" assembled knives, cleaning them up, and dressing them up with more premium handle materials. The blades on most of the Imperials are thin carbon steel, and great slicers. The clam shell design takes the entire sides of the knife - scales, bolsters, and even faux pins, and clamps them over the liners. This way, the entire side of the knife can be made with a very thin stainless steel or even some type of tin. Then, plastics are used to imitate bone, or mother of pearl, or acrylic, or whatever else. There is generally a clamp visible on the top of the bolster, and another visible on the bottom end of the knife handle. This is duplicated for each side.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I have a thread going in the tinkering forum, but I wanted to show off my results, such as they are, here as well. First off let me say this is the first knife tinkering I have ever attempted outside of standard sharpening. I did all of this work with a hand belt sander on a bench vise, a dremel tool, and a ball peen hammer.
Here is a before - my father found the knife on the floor of the tool closet. In this pic I have already removed the old clamshell scales.
What a mess. What was there to lose? Here is the end result!
I salvaged the internals and fabricated new nickel silver bolsters and pins. The scales are a dyed stabilized buckeye burl. The original knife turns out to be an Imperial Barlow.
It has its flaws - most notable of which is that I swapped blade positions, putting the pen blade behind the main blade. I did not notice this until I was practically ready to take photos. I did not have the heart to undo all I had done, so I ground a nail nick on the other side of the pen blade. The other most obvious flaw is one side of one of my bolsters didnt get great flow of solder, so there is a visible gap. Other than that my complaints are mostly around nit picking the finish or a very small gap here or there.
On the good side though, I have a sturdy and smooth working knife with some family history behind it back in good working order. Another big thing - I can appreciate all that much more the craftsmanship that goes into any hand made knife. Hats off to the guys who put up some of the stuff in the knifemakers area!
I left the finish of the knife looking more worn than glossy. Part of that was me working with the skill I had though. I buffed the stablized buckeye as much as I could with the tools that I have, but I do wish it was a shinier finish. I had trouble getting a smooth polish on the metal with the tools available to me, so I opted for more of brushed metal satin. I gave the blades a light sanding on the belt sander too to give the same satin look there. However, I intentionally did not remove all of the aging and character from the original steel. The blades open smoothly and easily, and they sharpened up extremely well with that old carbon steel.
Some pics
If anyone is interested in seeing more of the process, as poorly as I documented it, check out the thread here
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