Gap on the tang...

panch0

panch0

Joined
Jun 16, 2008
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I am working on a drop point hunter with a tapered tang. My grinder goes about Mach 5 and when grinding I applied too much pressure and now when I plade the scales there is a gap. The blade is 1/8 inch O1 and it is between the guard and the lanyard tube. It is kind of thin too start out with. I am thinking of grinding a bit more? Or should I mix in shavings from the scales into the epoxy. I am leaning toward the first. What do you guys think?
 
How much gap, panchO? You know I'm a newb, so take it with a grain of salt, but I've had a couple with minor gaps that almost disappeared when I glued them up with clear (Devton 2 Ton) epoxy. It seemed like the clear in the narrow space between tang and handle appears the color of it's surroundings, probably because there really isn't much light getting through it. If the wood is dark or black and you have a Golfsmith store close by, their epoxy dries black and is pretty inexpensive to boot.
 
panchO, here is one such gap that I was worried about but you really can't even see it now that it's glued with clear epoxy (although if you know it's there and really look hard, you can kinda tell.)

IMG_1048.jpg


Not a great pic I know, but here is what it looked like afterwards:

IMG_1315.jpg
 
PJ thanks, thats about how much space there is on the knife I am worried about. There is also a gap at the tail end where the front of the lower tang is thinner than the back spine.
 
You might want to get some black spacer material and then glue it to the backs of the scales. Then finish off the front of your scales again. Then you mix up your epoxy and add a drop of black enamel paint. Mount scales and allow to dry. then resand the edges. I think it would really have to be glaring then for anyone to detect
 
The first tapered tang I worked was bungled up pretty bad and had a gap in the center of one side. I hated it so much that I turned it into a hidden tang. It turned out much nicer than I had originally planned anyway, so I'm glad I did it. My issue with tapered tangs isn't the taper, it's getting the start of the taper to line up at the front of the handle.
 
To tell you guys the truth I had no idea what I was doing when I did the taper. Thats just the way I have to learn, the hard way. I know what I did wrong this time and will try and correct next time. Maybe I may try a hidden tang soon. Thanks for the advise guys.
 
One best ways to fill a gap. Is to fill it with superglue then put sawdust from the handle in the superglue. Great fast fix.
 
Just make sure it only contains dust from the handle material. I did one and forgot that I had ground some steel after the handle material. Looks all sparkly...and not in a good way. Little tip I picked up from Stacy Apelt is to take some spare handle material if you have any, place a cookie pan under the grinder and collect the dust that way.
 
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