OK, Got some machine shop work out of the way, put an engine back in my Bobcat and now I can get back to knife work.
I have made a dummy tang to hold the whole thing together while I do more of the work without the blade and the guard in the way, here I am using a 1/16 inch end mill to spot face the location of the drill hole for one of the pins. If I had just used a drill bit, it would have walked on the angled work piece.
I have taken out the end mill and replaced it with a 1/16 inch drill, I am drilling all the way through to 1/2 inch depth into the handle block.
Pin the first hole with a handy drill bit to hold it on location and mill and drill for the second pin, notice I have marked the guard for the ricasso of the blade, the blade will cover the pins.
Since the I don't want the pins in the butt cap to show, I drilled the holes on the butt end the same way as the guard end without the butt cap on. Then I used the last liner to transfer the location of the holes onto the butt cap, I super glued the liner to the butt cap and milled 1/16 inch into the butt cap through the holes in the liner.
So here's how the whole thing looks with the pins in, you can see the hidden holes on the inside of the butt cap.
Next I cut liner material to go between each of the other handle parts, in this case I am using bergundy suede leather. So it will be, starting at the guard; mokume, suede, mokume, suede, nickle-silver, suede, corrigated copper, suede, brass, suede, mosaic block, suede, brass, suede, corrigated copper, suede, nickle-silver, suede, mokume. I use lots of things for liner material, in this case I chose leather because it binds well to all materials, it compresses well so it almost disappears where the corrigated copper comes into contact with the liners next to it but it expands enough to pretty much fill the gaps in the corrigated copper. I really like that effect. I also chose the burgundy suede because when used with C.A. glue, the glue leaches the color out of the leather and bleeds it into the wood next to it, I like the way it looks.
Here it is with the leather liners all in, the whole thing is banded together for a dip in the C.A. glue. I want to be able to remove the guard and shape it seperately so I have only put one guard peice on (to aid in clamping and glueing the rest) and I coated it and the pins on that end with parting compound. I use grease or mink oil for that. I didn't want to plug up the tang hole with glue so I didn't pull it under vacuum, I only dipped it, the leather liners prevented glue from entering the tang hole.
Here it is after a dip in the glue, it looks like everything saturated nicely.
Here it is with the rubber bands and excess glue sanded off, the two guard pieces with liner material were put back on just to show how they go. The corrigations look filled nicely, and the liners all look pretty good. Next I will pin the two guard pieces together with the liner glued in between, and shape them. I will also start to shape the handle assembly and it will begin to look like a knife.
Please feel free to ask questions, I am not sure if I am being too detailed or, on the other hand, glossing over important stuff. I am happy to explain things the best that I can.
