Brazing question

[bennett]

I recently completed my first Damascus billets, and have finished turning one of them into a couple of blades. I forged stub tangs on the ends, with the intention of brazing or silver soldering all-thread stick tangs on them, and handling them with some stag or elk horn tapers. My question is, should I normalize/ harden, and THEN braze on the tangs and temper, or braze them on and THEN normalize/harden/temper with the stick tangs having already been brazed in place? A fellow knifemaker suggested that I might normalize/harden and then braze, if I sandwiched the blade between a couple of aluminum plates to act as a heat-sink. I don't have any aluminum plates, and don't know when I'll be able to get to a scrap yard to find some. I'd thought about hardening and then brazing or soldering on the tangs, and wrapping the blades in semi-frozen rags to keep the heat from creeping up into the blade. I guess I'm wondering what approach to take to keep from screwing up my first Damascus blades!:barf: I appreciate any advice ya'll might have.

 

[Will52100]

Normaly what I do is to finish the knife and install the gaurd, wrap the gard with a wet rag and silver braze a split bolt on the stub tange. I leave a couple inches past the guard to work with. After it cools, I give it three or four blue tempers with the torch to soften and refine the tange's grain to where it's tough again.

 

[Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith]

Will52100 has the plan.
Do all you need to do first.Wrap the blade/guard in a wet rag and braze the threaded rod on.Filing the tang stub to a taper,and splitting the bolt so it fits on the taper for about 1/2" makes a very strong joint.Just brazing the ends together is not strong.If you made the mistake of brazing before hardening you will discover the melting point of brazing rod/silver solder.

 

[fitzo]

If you use a bolt or allthread larger than the width of the tang, make sure and put the guard on first. Don't ask me how I know this!

Of course, you can grind flats on the sides of the allthread later, but it's still a stoopid-a$$ mistake.

 

[bennett]

Thanks for the feedback, fellas. I'm going to harden the blades tomorrow night. When it comes time to solder the tangs on, I'll use rags to keep the heat under control. I'll be sure to fit the guards first, Fitzo!:thumbup: Thanks again for all of the advice, ya'll. I'll post pics when I get them done.