Guard Help

TekSec

TekSec

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Joined
Dec 8, 2006
Messages
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Have a customer looking for a guard on a large Bowie style. It's a full tang so my idea is that I do a U-channel, slip it onto the ricasso and solder into place, then epoxy the slab face to it on each side. Is this right or is there a better way?
 
Here's the design...

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You have it essentially correct, though the additional inclusion of a pin in the guard would be more secure. You could watch Bob Loveless' video on making a hunter for instruction as this is wonderfully demonstrated. There is also a decent segment on it in Steve Johnson's video (the sub-hilt demonstrates the technique), which you could rent here. http://smartflix.com/store/video/2025/Making-A-SubHilt-Fighter
 
I feel a little silly trying to offer advice here since I'm so new at all of this but I have asked a lot of very good knifemakers a LOT of questions and this has come up before. I can only tell you what I've been told and what I have tried.

If you only want a single guard I think what you are doing would work fine. For a double guard you just need to make sure that your handle is just slightly narrower (front to back) than the blade width at the base of the ricasso. Then you can solder it in place and handle it as usual.

Here is a picture of a large bowie that I made like this to use for hog hunting. The guard is not soldered, just pinned. I didn't have a clue about soldering when I made this. I made the handle quite a bit narrower than the blade because of the stag I was using. I couldn't go any wider and this filled my hand and felt good to me. This is a really large knife and probably not the best example but hopefully you can at least see what I'm trying to explain.

SDS
 

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Another thing you could do since the handle and finger groove at the ricasso is all smaller than the blade. You could make a shoulder right at the tangent point of the finger groove. Then you could use the scales to hold it all together just like a stick tang. You could also solder it in place if desired.

Chuck
 
Fitzo's spot on, two things you can do, file a small shallow notch for the gaurd's bottom to lock into, and pin it. If your tight enough on your fit to look good you can just use epoxy for a seal. That type of gaurd is one that I haven't gotten tight enough for my satisfaction to use the solderless methoud so I still solder them and clean the solder up to a nice thin fillet. You can put the pin anywhere, but upper thirds about works good for me.

There are a couple of ways to do a double gaurd with the handle larger than the gaurd area. One is the loveless methoud of sliding the gaurd over the blade and butting it against stops on the handle, the other is the old sheffield methoud of a framed handle. A framed handle is basicly a hidden tange with a frame made to look like a full tange. Put the gaurd on, then the frame with handle slabs. Bruce Evens has a good tutorial of this on his website.
 
Mr. Courtney, am I right that the offset only has to be very slight? It seems like I have seen a few that have an almost imperceptible difference unless you look closely.

SDS
 
Thanks, guys. I had totally forgot about the Bruce Evans tutorial...I just saw that a few months back too. I think I'm set, now to get it right....
 
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