blade/handle not in line, (a question)

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DaQo'tah Forge

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As you may know, Im very new to knife making. I have had no teacher. I only try things and when I fail, I come here and ask for some advice.

Here is today's problem.

My steel is 52100, which I rough forged to a shape that looks knife-like, then I stock removed all the rest to finish the blade. I then placed a brass guard onto the tang, then cut my sheep horn to make a hidden tang knife.

The sheep horn was about $40.00 so I tried to be very careful. Now to keep myself from being cut by the blade of the knife, I made a sheath out of paper and tape to cover the blade as I worked on the sheep horn handle.

The trouble came when I thought I was finished and took off the paper/tape sheath to look at my knife and I noticed that the blade is not lined up with the handle any more.

(the blade seems to be pointing off to the left)

The knife is now just junk, but I don't understand how you guys sand a knife handle to keep it in line with the blade?

What are the tricks?
 
you mean the handle is not in line with the blade? or the blade is bent? i think you mean that you did'nt shape the handle evenly. if so remove more until it matches. this problem can come up offen with natural materials so don't beat your self up. it takes alot of practice to match up horn,bone etc. i myself prefer stabilized woods and micarta.
 
I have that problem too when doing a slotted gaurd. My problem lies in not having the slot in the gaurd parallel to the sides of the gaurd. So when you mount the gaurd to the blade the back of the gaurd is not truely perpendicular to the blade. That little angle gets magnified as you get further away from it and use it to line up your handle.

Hope that makes sense and maybe that is whats going on with your blade.

I use the JB weld technique when mounting slotted gaurds, so I leave a little wiggle room between the gaurd and blade. I don't hard assemble the knife untill all the pieces are done and line up.

Hopefully my mill will solve that problem for me, because I suck at using files:D
 
next time....next time...?
what to do,,,what to do?

i just got to think of a way that you guys must use..

I guess I should explane my problem better so you can toss out a few ideas...

I am learning how to use sheep horn to make the handle of the hidden tang knife,,,I want a knife that looks like a Ed Fowler pronghorn,,,and the 3knives I have made so far look darn good to my eyes.

But this 4th sheep horn knife I just turned into a pile of junk!.

The knife blade is not bent,,,,,but it looks bent when you sight down the handle. It's looks like it's bent right at the front of the blade/guard connection.

But it's not really bent, thats just the way it looks. the blade and tang are very good, I sanded them down in a straight line, but you do get the effect of the bent blade as you sight down the butt end of the knife to the blade tip.

UPDATE:
Tonight just to do something on this blade to make it look a bit better, I buffed the sheep horn on my buffer,,,,and soon the horn got like, "See-though"...you can now see the tang of the knife just under the horn about 1/8 to 1/4 inch in.

the tang is not seen on one side, but it's hard to miss on the other, and that fits with the fact that I sanded the horn lop-sided so that the tang is almost sticking out I got so close to it....

My problem is,,,I dont know how to Not do this again!

My knife making has come to a stop untill I understand how to keep from sanding too much off one side, and not enough off the other...

Do you guys draw so kind of line down the middle of the hidden tang handle to remember where the tang is so that the handle stays in line?

How would I draw such a line?

I think part of my trouble came when I was trying to not just go for a even handle. In The Fowler knife making movie I use as a guide, Mr. Fowler points out that a hand is not even, so why should the handle made for it be even,,,but the trouble came as I was sanding the sheep horn to fit my hand. I would sand for a while, then grab the handle with my hand, and mark all the spots that my hand didnt like, and then sand them some more,,,,the handle now feels so good,,,,I love the way the handle works with the curves of my hand,,,,

But then I took the paper and tape sheath off my blade to look at it and saw that now my blade looks like its been bent off to one side..

what do I do to not do that again?
 
Hi DaQo'tah

I've got a few of those "off to the left" knives laying around the shop, myself. I can't cure the problem for you, but here's what I've figured out so far.

When you're drilling into your handle material, you've got to pay really close attention that you are drilling straight and perpendicular. It's really easy, for me anyway, to start a hole on center only to have it wander to one side or the other if I don't pay really close attention to what I'm doing. I used to try to use my drill press, but have found that I can do a better job with my hand drill. Start with small bits.

Check your handle fit before gluing it up. Site it from the blade tip down to the handle then turn it around and look from the handle down to the tip to make sure everything is straight. Alot of times, I'll have the handle material flat where it butts up to the guard, but one side will be higher than the other. This will all fit up to the guard without any gaps, but when you site down the blade, you get the "off to the left" effect.

Make sure that your guard is flat and on straight and perpendicular. A crooked guard can be the start of a crooked handle, as well.

You can get away with using a pencil to mark guide lines on alot of materials, just remember to test on a scrap piece first, if you are unsure if it'll make a permanent mark.

That's about all I got, bud. Hope it helps.
Bob
 
DaQo'tah and all,
I've been told by several people lately that I do things wrong but the key for me is in the joint between the guard and the handle material. If the guard is square to the blade and flat on the back and the handle material is flat in the dirrection that I choose then when clamped it will stay where I want it. Mostly I want it square but sometimes not. It depends on what feels good to me.
Sorry for the bad sentance structure and spelling!
Lynn
 
There are a few things you could do:
-use the knife as a (hard) working knife and don't care for the looks, only the cutting quality and the nice fit in your hand,the comfort it gives.(that's what I often do with knives or blades that don't turn out "right").(I have several, I have to admit)
-grind everything of the blade and start over.

jan
 
There are NO "TRICKS" and no easy way to do this with Sheep horn. You have to first figure the best fit in your hand and then plan what you are going to have to do to get the horn to fit your hand better. You also have to do everything that has been suggested above. The gaurd has to be square to the blade. the horn has to be fitted so that it will be square when you are done. This in most instances is not going to be the way it fits when you start. In most cases you have to drill the holes for the tang off center and then sand polish to get back to center. Then trying to get all this to happen and not have to grind off all the outside "bark" is the real challenge. remove the paper sheath and check often and double check before glueing and after ten or twelve knives you'll get one to fit and work out just right. Sometimes you can put a little bend in the tang to help fit but it is a lot of frustrating work to put sheephorn on a knife.

Keep at it and you'll get it. You can see what you should have done differently in the knief that you just made. Use it to formulate a plan for the next knife/handle

Bill
 
All of the above is gospel truth. I also use a dab of super glue to hold everything together while shaping and sanding. It doesnt take much to pop the parts back apart and sand off the glue. The parts will hold together temporary while fitting other parts or they can be permanent. After everything fits simply hard glue the tang in. Remember that super glue only needs a drop or less.

This info is for general hidden tang knives, not just sheep horn handles.
 
Thats the classic answer. But I find that I got a lot of those problems because I couldn't visualise the blade in line as I had wrapped the blade enough to turn it into a small pillow ! I nowadays wrap the blade very evenly up and down with masking tape followed by PVC electrical tape which is nice and soft and will take a few accidental grinds on a 40grit belt and still survive. But the point is that I wrap very evenly up and down the blade so even fully protected, the blade lines are easily visible. Makes it easier to line things up.

You could try on your knife to slowly remove a little at a time from the "offending side" but I guess thats what you've been doing.

Actually, on a positive note, a blade bent slightly to the left is quite a natural using position for a right hander. Also, most natural materials have all sorts of curvatures that don't line up in the mechanical / sterile way we imagine.

Cheers. Jason.
 
DaQo'Tah: Welcome to the frontiers of the sheep horn handle. There are no road maps, only discovery. Sheep horn has taught me much about the wonders of the human hand. Every horn is different, the challenge is like courting a new lady - you can get burned and you can know man's greatest experience. I have horn that I could not figure out how to make it a knife handle sitting in my shop for years and one day after holding it for the 1,000 time or more it comes to me - how - and we dance.

A old tutor of mine in another venue said "go with it, they put erasers on pencils for a reason. That thought has been a guiding light for me, try it, if it doesn't work understand why and try again. There is no learning without thought, trial and error.

There is one absolute rule - enjoy the voyage!
 
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