Damascus full tang need advice.

[caribwill]

I have a beautiful full tang blade from Alabama Damascus. How can I grind the scales and shape them without removing all the etch and having a silver polished tang on a black Damascus knife?

Thanks!

 

[rannalf]

I'm a noob, so I am sure someone with lots of experience could tell you an easier/better way, but the first thing that occurred to me was to transfer the tang profile to another piece of material, attach the scales mechanically, grind them, and then transfer them to the real blade. If you are doing bolster fitting, etc., that might not work too well though.

 

[unky_gumbi]

I went through this myself already the trick is to get the scales finished before etching the knife. That means that you have to temporarily attach the scales to the tang to finish them, then take it all apart and then etch the blade, or in my case, re-etch the the blade

 

[tryppyr]

Thinking outside the box...

You could grind down the full tang to a hidden tang, and create the handle from a block instead of scales. I did that on one knife already. You would have to be careful not to let the blade overheat while grinding the tang. I managed that by dipping it in water every few seconds.

- Greg

 

[argel55]

Or red finger nail polish to cover the handle material that you don't want the ferric chloride to contact. can also tape the flat side of the handle slabs so you don't have to paint somuch nail polish.

 

[unky_gumbi]

Here are the recommendations that were given to me when I did the same thing

 

[sunshadow]

drill the tang for hidden alignment pins (I would suggest 1/8 inch, it is easy to get 1/8 inch brass rod) set up your scales and drill for your rivets, but also drill 3/16ths into the scales through the alignment pins holes with the scale blanks clamped in place one at at time (make sure the alignment pin holes are shallow enough and placed so that they will not breach the surface when finished. With the scale blanks placed on the alignment pins, outline the tang onto the inside of the blank with a sharp marking knife, shape the profile of the scales off the knife right up to the scribed line. Shape the scales, get them ready for finish and radius the inside edge with a 1/32" radius, that will make subtle differences and scale seasonal dimensional changes less obvious. Personally I'd slightly radius the tang edges too, but I make my own damascus so I can etch whenever I want in the process, YMMV

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