Attaching Butt Caps?

[jawilder]

For a hidden tang knife, I have seen some weld a bolt onto the tang and a nut onto the butt cap with the handle material being recessed for the nut. Is this common practice?

What are the other methods of attaching a butt cap?

What about the butt caps that have a D-guard on them. Many of them will have a small rivet/pin on the end like the one pictured here.

Are there any good tutorials for working with these or perhaps the whole hidden tang process?

 

[TekSec]

You can thread the tang / weld a bolt on and then tap the cap to screw on. You can also run the tang out through the butt cap and then peen it to secure it. That's the most permanent. The last way (not recommended by me) is to JB Weld / epoxy the cap on to the tang / butt. Of the three, I like the thread and screw on, if you peen, you take the chance of having the wood / handle material shrink leaving it loose. If you thread it and leave a little wiggle room, you can break the LocTite free and tighten it back up. No tutorials that I know of though...

 

[tomh]

Harvey Dean's D Guard Bowie video has some great instructions about this very thing. Which you can use on any hidden tang.