Epoxy with pins vs. no epoxy with pins

G

GaryPogueCustomKnife

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Oct 8, 2013
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I seen a video on YouTube of Michael Morris making a knife. In the video he didn't use epoxy on his handle, only pins. Not corbys or rivets, but just peened pinstock. I am curious to see if there are any real advantages to using epoxy and pins or just plain pins. I seal my handles with spray lacquer anyway so I am not worried about moisture getting to the tang. It would save time and money, but does it raise the chance of breaking the scales off by not using epoxy?

Thanks,
Gary
 
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I like the security of "screwed and glued" or "pinned and glued", but this is not to say that not using epoxy will make an inferior knife. I subscribe to the theory that it is better to prevent any moisture ingress under the handle, despite how well sealed or how impervious the handle material is to moisture. Additionally, for those who do not have a perfectly flat tang or scales, the epoxy helps to hide the blemish . . . to a small extent.

Mike L.
 
Personally I feel that for the virtually negligible cost of epoxy for each knife it is more than worth it. I use epoxy even though I peen, and still epoxy when I use corbys. Epoxy and fasteners are cheap insurance in my opinion. Spray lacquer will wear off over time with use I would imagine, leaving the seam between tang and scale open to moisture as well.
 
Yeah that's not good enough. Spray lacquer will wear off pretty quick.
Go with epoxy and pins, or better yet bolts of some sort. Most folks on this forum will tell you that.
I've made quick knives with no adhesives, but I wouldn't recommend it for anything you're serious about.
 
GaryPogueCustomKnife said:
I spray them when they are attached to the knife, tang included.
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That's a waste of time and money. It accomplishes nothing in the long run.

I do put a coat of spray polyurethane on my tangs, on the rare occasions that I make cord-wrapped "handles". This is only to protect the tang from moisture while I wrap them, since I like to use hot, wet paracord for wrapping, because it stretches when wet and then tightens up as it dries.
 
I would think just using epoxy would be more secure than just using pins, unless high heat was introduced.
 
Very cool discussion as I am still learning a bunch and have used epoxy so far and based on this will continue to as I like the extra security and water tightness.
 
I'm not seeing the reason for the aversion to using epoxy. As others have said, the cost is negligible. I find the glue up to be very fun.

If you aren't going to take your scale fastening really serious (of course you should), then I'd suggest you at least use some slow setting epoxy from the hardware store. It'll cost only a few bucks, but at least you'll know it's properly sealed, if not the strongest chemical fastening available.

Just my 2c. :)
 
A Justice said:
I would think just using epoxy would be more secure than just using pins, unless high heat was introduced.
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That depends on how you prepped the knife before applying the epoxy. I have seen several knives on here where it looks like the maker left the HT scale on the blade and put a handle on it. From the test I did the epoxy does not hold good at all to a blank that has HT scale.

The price for good epoxy is a small price to pay. Buy a big bottle and it would cost less than a buck a knife.

Gary if you haven't tried an oil finish yet , give it a try. My guess is you wont use the lacquer any more.
 
Spalted said:
That depends on how you prepped the knife before applying the epoxy. I have seen several knives on here where it looks like the maker left the HT scale on the blade and put a handle on it. From the test I did the epoxy does not hold good at all to a blank that has HT scale.

The price for good epoxy is a small price to pay. Buy a big bottle and it would cost less than a buck a knife.

Gary if you haven't tried an oil finish yet , give it a try. My guess is you wont use the lacquer any more.
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Right now, I am using what I got already. I will buy some tru oil or tung oil when I can
 
I recently did a rehandle of a knife that had simply pinned scales.
59bhDts.jpg


Epoxy is not optional as far am in concerned!
 
Strigamort said:
It'll cost only a few bucks, but at least you'll know it's properly sealed, if not the strongest chemical fastening available.
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Cheap hardware-store epoxy does a very poor job of sealing or affixing anything, and is quite literally designed to fail after only a few years. Please do a bit more research and/or gain some experience before repeating rumors and hearsay as "facts".
 
I know that James. Ed Fowler said as much a long time ago. I guess "properly" wasn't the best choice of words. Still, I'd rather have Devcon epoxy over nothing. I'd rather have Gorilla Glue than nothing. Hell, I'd rather have bubble gum than nothing.

I believe I said that the 1/1 slow set epoxy is better than nothing if he didn't plan on taking fastening seriously.

I'll stand by that.

Look James, I get the feeling that you assume I know little or nothing about, well, anything really. You seem to like to point that out as frequently as you can. My resume includes research as a large part of my portfolio. I like to think that I'm decent at my job. Please back off, or pm me in the future with your concerns. I will be fair with you, and I'll edit anything that needs edited.

Thanks.
 
I like using both but I recently bought an old WW1 knife dug out of the ground with it´s handle scales still attached.
I has only two peened pinns.
 
Personally, I mainly just use epoxy to seal out moisture. I would never trust handle scales that were "just" epoxied on. I don't care how you prepped them, or how good of an epoxy you used. It's not really a matter of if they'll fail, but when, IMO.

That said, a properly peened pin should be plenty strong enough to hold a relatively stable scale material in place. In fact, you should almost have to break the scale (or drill the peened portion out) in order to get the scale loose.
 
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