Bonding copper to carbon steel

David Schott

David Schott

Joined
Sep 27, 2004
Messages
3,041
Hello,
I have a customer who wants copper liners on a full tang knife. Any concerns? I would assume the normal epoxy I use for handles will bond copper to steel, but was not sure. I thought of simply making a copper frame to have it appear as a liner, then cutting out the center to be able to still drill some rivet holes for the epoxy to bond better. I also consider switching up to a different epoxy that will bond metals together better, like JBWeld, but was worried about using an epoxy I wasn't super familiar with...

My plans are to bond the copper to the wood first, then bond the wood/copper piece to the metal.

Anyone done this?
 
I think you'll be just fine with your regular epoxy as long as your pins are holding everything together as normal. If you're really concerned use corbys rather than pins. :)

-d
 
One thing you need to pay attention to is getting a full layer of epoxy to isolate the Steel from the Copper, because the two metals can act as a weak electric cell and start corrosion of the steel. I occasionally use copper liners, but use spacer material between the metals.

I got this info from an engineer that bought a couple of knives from me a few years ago.
 
You can solder them easily also. Just pre-tin both pieces, clamp them together, and reheat until the solder flows. I, at times, use copper bolsters on my folders and do it this way with all bolsters, copper, bronze, brass, damascus, etc. No titanium though.
 
Interesting...I think I may actually do two layers, fully pin and peen the copper with a laminate of epoxy between the copper and steel, then use my normal pinning for the wood through both...I could just paint the copper with a thin layer of clearcoat before glueing...
 
I've put copper shim and brass shim under my handle slabs a few times. I also put them between the bolster and handle slab when I do this. I've found that the biggest difficulty is that the shim usually isn't very flat, and has little buckles in it. I use the handle slabs to clamp it flat to the tang, epoxying both the copper and handle slab on one side at the same time. Then I drill through the tang, using it as a template to get my pin or bolt holes drilled. I then epoxy the copper and handle slab to the other side.

I've never had an issue with corrosion. At least, I've never been told about one from the folks who have the knives.
 
The corrosion usually comes into play when they are in a saline soluti9on, like sea water. That will definately cause some galvanic action. Dry, or just wet with rain or other fresh water once in a while should pose no problem at all.

Gene
 
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