Bolster pins

Cleaning out the hole with acetone is a great idea. Lots of good ideas in this thread. I also am going to buy a smaller peen hammer that is just for pins. You can see in my above picture that I had some grime transfer over to the pins from the hammer that I used. Any recommendations on a size or style? Cross peen, ball peen, etc??
 
Bill DeShivs said:
A vise is not the way to do it. You will simply bend the pin.
Peen them with a small hammer. Don't beat them, or use an arbor press- just properly peen them.
This just feels wrong- admonishing George Schrade's grandson! But if George was here, he'd tell you the same thing.
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Thanks Bill,

I gratefully take all the advice I can get. I have his stidy, hammers and hand vice, I wish they could talk.
 
IF you polish the ball end of your hammer the material will peen much smoother. Bob Loveless had a small hammer with a red handle that was only used to peen pins.
 
Chuck Gedraitis Knives said:
IF you polish the ball end of your hammer the material will peen much smoother. Bob Loveless had a small hammer with a red handle that was only used to peen pins.
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Absolutely this! Make that hammer head shine. Mirror polish. It makes it so much easier for me. Also, I use a ball pein, some guys use a flat hammer. I like the curved face.
 
I was talking with Mike Quesenberry about penning pins.
He said that he has a hammering attachment for his Foredom that makes the process much more efficient.
 
If you use the flat head of a small hammer, the pin will peen more evenly. I seldom use the ball end for simple pin peening.
 
Bill DeShivs said:
If you use the flat head of a small hammer, the pin will peen more evenly. I seldom use the ball end for simple pin peening.
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Bill, I've been thinking about what I said/typed earlier. I'd like to restate my opinion. You are absolutely correct. A flat hammer makes the pin pein over more symmetrically into the counterbore. I sometimes use the ball side, but I use it more in rounding over pins for razor scales and getting that nice convex pin head. Making pins disappear in bolsters is easier with a flat head, you are correct 100%.
 
No one has mentioned this because it has not been an issue with the knives that have been posted, but the first piece of advice that I got about this was make sure that your bolster and pin materials is the same stuff. EXACTLY the same. I suspect that is the reason that some guys use the hidden pin technique where you use a dremel to open up the bottom go the hole and have the pins mushroom out inside of the bolster. I suspect that it would be very hard to match a pin to a damascus pattern even with the same steel.
 
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Brian,
Make a simple, cupped head punch to round your rivet heads.
 
jdm61 said:
No one has mentioned this because it has not been an issue with the knives that have been posted, but the first piece of advice that I got about this was make sure that your bolster and pin materials is the same stuff. EXACTLY the same. I suspect that is the reason that some guys use the hidden pin technique where you use a dremel to open up the bottom go the hole and have the pins mushroom out inside of the bolster. I suspect that it would be very hard to match a pin to a damascus pattern even with the same steel.
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I believe DH3 uses a loctite epoxy of some kind to attach his along with hidden pins (un expanded). Maybe loctite 724?
 
I've completed another knife since the repair job I did in this thread and the pins came out great. Thank you all for all the advice.
 
You are correct, sir. He does that even when using things like exposed 18k gold pins, I axed him a while back. :D
Brian.Evans said:
I believe DH3 uses a loctite epoxy of some kind to attach his along with hidden pins (un expanded). Maybe loctite 724?
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I think that Stan Wilson was the first guy I saw make 416 SS pins disappear before my very eyes at a local hammer in. I was amazed. The important parts have been covered here. Same material for all parts, countersink the holes a bit, peen carefully using the proper tools and everything must be CLEAN, CLEAN, CLEAN!!!!:thumbup:
 
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