Blade glued not straight

D

DSTiamat

Joined
Feb 4, 2011
Messages
53
Hello,

As a bloody beginner that I am I wasnt carefull and my Laury PTX blade worth 40$ is now glued a bit to one side. The Epoxy is fully cured. Is there anything I can do? Aside from cracking the handle because that material was pretty rare.
Thank you again
DST
 
I assume that the blade is a hidden tang, and when the glue dried the handle was cocked off to one side a bit?
Photos or a good description that will let us know the tang type, handle material , and any other pertinent details are needed to make any answer.

Some ways to avoid and/or deal with this problem are:

Use a gluing clamp, which allows the handle and blade to be kept in alignment ( which is too late for this knife). Make one from a woodworkers clamp. Saw a 1/4" wide and 3" long slot down one jaw for the blade to slip through. The guard will sit against this jaw. The butt of the handle will be held tight with the other jaw. Because the jaws can be angled any way you wish ( by adjusting the two screw handles), the handle can be easily held so the joint at the guard is perfect. Here is a clamp of the type I am speaking of:
http://www.woodcraft.com/Product/2020512/22601/Pinnacle-Handscrew-Clamp-8-inch.aspx

Use a slightly oversize block of handle material, and after the glue is dry, grind/sand the handle so it is in alignment with the blade. This is always a good idea. On the current knife, if there is enough material ,carefully remove material from the back of the leaning side and the front of the other side to make the sides parallel to the blade. Then shape the handle the rest of the way. You may have to taper it a bit or something to make it look right.

Un-glue the handle. If the material isn't extremely fragile or heat sensitive, you can warm the knife and make the glue break down. Place the knife in an oven at 200F. Using gloved hands, after 10 minutes try and see if the blade can be wiggled any at all. Twist it and wiggle it, as if you were working a fence post out of the ground. If it doesn't move, try the oven for another 10 minutes. It may take as many as 30 minutes for any results to show. If it still isn't moving, raise the temperature to 250F and try again. In many cases, you can heat the blade with a heat gun, or carefully with a torch, and raise it to about 300-350F . This will destroy the glue joint and allow the blade to be pulled out of the handle. Done carefully, it will not hurt the blade or the handle. The handle can then be drilled out to remove all the old glue, and re-glued straight.

Take a hammer and smack the handle while holding it on the anvil. This will remove the handle. Clean up the tang and start with a new handle block.

A tip on avoiding this problem is to make sure the handle block sits perfect on the guard before gluing them together. After drilling out the block to fit the tang, sand the block end so it sits perfectly flush with the guard/bolster. Clamp it in the jig and look it over all around. If it is a perfect fit and all is straight, take it out, glue it up, and re-clamp it.....checknig that all is straight. When the glue is almost set ( check your unused glue for tackiness), double check everything - things move sometimes . Make any adjustments NOW, as the glue will be set too firmly in a few minutes.
Also, slightly chamfering the tang hole makes it easier to fit to the guard, as there is no material touching in the center, just around the perimeter. This trick can help make a seamless joint.
 
Hello and THANK YOU big time, the blade is a hidden tang nordic style, the handle material is buffalo horn, I dont know if the heating part will be ok:(.
I am that dissappointed because it took me forever to shape the handle with a rasp and then twice forever of sanding to remove the scratches of the rasp wiht just sand papar. This is my 3-th knife and I dont have many needed tools like a belt sander, doing the work with a drum sander bit for my hand drill, but in this case I just used the rasp as the amount of dust from the horn is incredible.Right now im on a buiseness trip and sorry for the bad quality, pictures taken with my cell phone.
One more question would be, the knife needs a final polishing of the handle, what buffing compound should I use ( blue one??)?
TY again


http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/849/photo0019r.jpg/
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/703/photo0021t.jpg/
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/560/photo0022y.jpg/
 
You might get away with bending the blade.
Cover the jaws of a vice with leather, rubber or a tea towel to not scratch the blade and give it a go.
Otherwise I'd go with Stacy's advice
 
I tried bending it, but the Lauri PTX seems not wanting too, I tried with 80% of my force. What buffing compound should I use for the horn?
 
Matchless white or no-scratch pink

If you heat just the blade slowly and let the heat work back up the tang, it will come out. I have done that many times .
 
Last edited:
Could you take a little bit off the side of the horn to make it less noticeable?

- Paul Meske
 
As Stacy said heat the blade near the guard. You can protect the front part of the blade by placing a 3/8 round slice of a potatoe over the blade next toand in front of the area you will heat. Frank
 
Or keep this knife as a reminder not to make this mistake again and start a new project.
 
Is bending the blade a good option? because I am afraid of the heating part. Will the balde not get damaged when bending?
TY
 
? - was the guard soldered in place or did you glue/assemble all in the same step?
If the guard went on first and was soldered.....it's canted (not square to the blade) therefore the handle will also be canted. You will have to remove both.
If not, as Stacy said, warm up the blade with a heatgun (serious hairdryer) until the glue starts to smell, and bubble a bit. If you are careful you will not harm horn or blade. You can use a torch as well, but keep the flame low and heat carefully. Keep away from the horn and guard and let the heat travel back into the handle via the tang. It will loosen enough to pull off and redo. Keep a wet rag handy to cool things if they get too hot.....blade, horn, fingers.....
The oven will work, but keep in mind that horn is compressed hair and does bad things when it gets overheated like curling, singing, burning, cracking, etc. Real bad hair day!

Gotta weigh the blade bending idea.......if it breaks off at the tang or anywhere for that matter........replacement horn begins to sound pretty cheap!
 
All was glued in the same step,so I will do the heating method, also I should remove the old glue carefully from the tang hole, right? else the new epoxy wont grip the tang strongly.
Thank you, really nice ppl.
DST
 
i had to do something similar many years ago and after some thinking i put the blade in a cup of water with about 1" of the blade left above the water and froze it. then i wrapped a wet rag around the handle and froze it. when i heated the blade, the ice protected the blade from getting too hot and the rag protected the handle which was antler from getting too hot yet allowing the epoxy to be softened enough to remove the blade. i redone the knife and it was good to go.
 
Hello again,

I treid the method with heating the blade but i think i ruined it. It has now a wonderfull violet blue and yellow colour, :confused:, think its not good and the handle is still in its place.
DST
 
Colors don't really tell you a lot. Check the edge with a file and see if it is noticably softer.
 
Clamp the working/cutting edge in a vise with aluminum jaws (protect the blade) and leave enough of the spine and choil area exposed to heatup. It takes time for the heat to telegraph back up into the handle. Wiggle the handle gently as you pull on it (make sure the blades is clamped tight and secure). It will eventually loosen up - should be able to feel the heat move up the tang through the handle. I'm with Stacy, color is probably no big deal - what steel alloy is the blade anyway?

Clean up residual old epoxy with acetone. It won't hurt the horn if you don't saturate it (no soaking) - drip a little in the tang hole and use a bent coathanger to scrape out the residual. You can soak the guard.

Next time you assemble it, do the guard first and make sure it seats square to the blade. Let it cure, clean up residual, then check fit the handle and make any adjustments needed before you glue it up.
 
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