Dealing with a gap

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gunsandknives

Joined
Jan 5, 2014
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Regardless of how hard I try, sometimes I wind up with a hair thin gap between the wood and the steel, right at the end of the scale. It's always too late to correct, and noticeable when you hold it up to the light. My work doesn't really merit hours of "repair" but the mistake still bugs me. What do you guys do in this event? I'm not sure if the wood is bowed or the steel, guess it doesn't matter. How about saw dust and Elmer's?
 
You might be pushing the but end into your belt as you come off the grinder. Try to keep your blade square as you finish your pass.
 
Touch up pigments come in a wide range of colors, I've mixed those with water proof gorilla glue (non expanding) and have made some nearly invisible cabinet repairs over the years
 
Make sure that before glue-up all your pieces are FLAT. If you have a disc sander flatten your scales and tang with that. If not, sand your pieces on sandpaper mounted to a flat surface like a thick piece of glass or a granite surface plate etc. To repair a gap you can try to use sanding dust from the same kind of wood used on your handles mixed with a thin CA glue.
 
Thank you for mentioning he disc sander. I now hold my scales against the tang and look at a strong light to see if there are any gaps or high spots and then hold the scales against a disc to make sure its flat and recheck. If the tang is not flat it will show up then and it too will have to be flattened on the disc. I recently had a knife with the condition you describe and I stared at it for a day and then knocked out the pins and took the scales off and threw them away . I found the blade was not perfectly flat and headed for the disc sander. I now have a really nice ( and thin) knife which took a lot of work because both sides hade to be sanded equally to keep the grind in the center of the blade. I try to repair all mistakes for the practice and also to teach my self a lesson. This is why I don't play the radio in the shop or take a phone with me to the garage. I need to think about each step each time I make a knife or something will go wrong every time.
 
gunsandknives said:
Regardless of how hard I try, sometimes I wind up with a hair thin gap between the wood and the steel, right at the end of the scale. It's always too late to correct, and noticeable when you hold it up to the light. My work doesn't really merit hours of "repair" but the mistake still bugs me. What do you guys do in this event? I'm not sure if the wood is bowed or the steel, guess it doesn't matter. How about saw dust and Elmer's?
Click to expand...

What you want is tinted CA glue. You can get it at amazon. We use Starbond. They sell it already tinted.

I always had gaps if I used a machine to flatten. I know others have luck with the disc, but we flatten on a surface plate with 60 grit sandpaper glued to it.
 
I haven't got a gap in between the spine and scale yet, but I have had gaps between a bolster and scale. I flatten my scales on a 4" self adhesive roll of 100 grit that I stick on my granite plate. For the scale to bolster gaps I've opened up the pin holes to allow some "slop" and usually helps in aligning everything.
 
I've only had it happen a few times and it's always when I'm doing a "batch".. too big of a hurry I suppose..

BUT!!!

From my woodworking habit, I learned to keep some sawdust from whatever I was working on to make filler if needed, so I've always tried to harvest a little handle material the same way. I just mix up some of the dust and epoxy (slower types flow better and give you some more time to work it.) you will get a minor difference in appearance from the host material, but again I've not seen that to be a problem even with dyed burls.

THE PROBLEM is that you may have separation in other areas which might compromise your handle, but if it's just a small spot here or there you're prolly OK..

just my 2-cents..
 
Unfortunately, I don't have a disc sander, only a very old 1x42 belt sander. I've been sanding my scales using a piece of granite on the bench top. I finally realized the pressure point my fingers put on the scale can affect the flatness. So, without a disc sander is there any good way to flatten a slightily uneven tang?
 
Without a disc sander flatten your tang on the granite. I've done it. It's a PITA but it will work fine. Try to use even pressure.
 
I have one on the bench now that has a hairline gap between the red liner and steel. I tried to taper the full tang probably did not square up both sides. I noticed a black line while hand sanding the scale. I dug the surface layer off and am now thinking about adding some dye to a small amount of epoxy or CA to fill the gap. If that does not work or looks like a flaw I will be either removing the scales or making it into a shop knife.
 
I take every precaution to make sure my materials are flat when I assemble my knives. I have even begun running the scales on the surface grinder. Even with being very diligent about flatness, stuff happens. I use G/Flex epoxy and I tint it with artist oil paint. I can color match anything with a basic set of oils.

Bob
 
To lap things flat by hand use a figure eight motion when sanding, this helps keep things flat.
 
A sharpie marker is your friend when it comes to this.

Mark the entire area and flaten....what is not flat will still have sharpie on it.
 
Sanding a scrap of the scale material into a very thin, knife-edged shim and glueing it into the gap works better than mixing sanding dust into adhesive, in my experience. Sanding dust gets completely encapsulated by the adhesive and usually looks markedly different than the parent material
 
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