guard hole

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willy m

Joined
Nov 27, 2007
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welp, here is my question im making my first hidden tang knife. i want to put a brass guard on it the question is how much gap is required between blade and guard for an effective brazing joint? and how much gap is too much to look good? i have a slot app. 3/32 @ narrowest and a small oops at 7/64 my blade tang is 1/16 is my small oops too big to finish up nicely? also since my guard is brass should it be brazed with brass? if so how do i do that without affecting my ht? if not brazed then what? with what? it was very hard to drill it out and keep it symetrical. any ideas? thanks abunch! willy:confused::confused:
 
You can just swage it on and maybe pin it which is easier and much less messy then brazing. Brass is soft enough that you can get a very tight fit by making it expand around the tang. I have never brazed or welded a guard on.
 
A tang that is 1/16 thick is a bit on the thin side, unless the blade is really small. 1/8" is more like it for strength. If the tang is not hardened or in a normalized condition it will bend easily. If it ends up in the annealed state it will bend very easily.

best of luck and post a pic when you get it done, Fred
 
L/T is to soft, you could use siver solder but you should only have a gap of about .003
for a good joint.The guard should be a snug slip fit.
 
willy m said:
could i solder it with regular lead/tin solder? i can do that well
Click to expand...

Get some sta-brite silver solder. It will look better and stay brite. and works especially well on disimilar metals. it melts at 410 F if I'm not mistaken. You can solder with an electric heat gun.
 
where can i get stabrite silver solder? can i get it locally ie,hardware or do i have to order it. b.finnigan; i tried to e-mail u but its off also. i went into user c.p. and changed mine its on now. i had to change e-mail address and i must have missed it when doing it over. u can e-mail me now. or ill check yours to see if its on later. thanks,willy:o
 
I was fitting a guard to a blade and got the slot slightly too wide. I put it on with the gap showing and then put the guard and knife in my vise, with the jaws on each side of the guard. I then carefully cranked my vise shut on the sides of the guard until the gap disappeared. The brass guard was soft enought to deform inwards and close up the gap.

It did leave some nasty marks on the sides of the guard and bellies out the front and back face of the guard, but with a little clean up work the marks were removed and the guard fit was perfect.
 
If you get a nice solid block of steel, cut a slot just wide enough for your blade, put a nice polish on the top surface, mount it solidly so you can slug it pretty hard, put the public side of the guard against the block with the blade through the slot and use a very slightly rounded face 3/8 diameter punch on the backside, you should be able to upset enough of a swage locally so the hole grows smaller around the blade without too much public distortion provided your stock is thick enough to supply the movement

-Page
 
I'll render my collector's opinion. I collect hunters with installed finger guards, I have a low opinion of knives without guards, so thank you for taking the time and trouble. If you can't salvage the guard by using Sunshadow's method, and don't want to sell a flawed knife, you will have to remake the guard. Your gap is too big to produce a nice solder joint. Silver solder is the most used method, and it looks the best against the blade. Lead/tin solder will turn dark as it ages. Brazing would work, but the color of the brass rod may not match the brass guard and therefore look funny. With silver solder, your gap should be next to nothing and the solder fillet should be minimal. The finished joint should look like a simple tight fit, but of course there is the solder in there. You might want to practice on some scrap, as I'm sure the technique is difficult to master. This ideal solder joint will not hide any mismatch between guard and blade, so the guard must be made with the same care as the blade. You will need a set of jeweler's files.

Speaking of technique and master, some makers who otherwise are skilled do not think the solder joint is necessary. It is. Lack of a solder joint identifies a maker as either lazy, unskilled, or disrespectful of the buyer.
 
"Speaking of technique and master, some makers who otherwise are skilled do not think the solder joint is necessary. It is. Lack of a solder joint identifies a maker as either lazy, unskilled, or disrespectful of the buyer.
"


Would you consider Terrry Primos and Ed Caffrey in that broad generalization? It takes far more skill to machine and file a notch to swage on and have no gaps then to rough one in for solder.

I have never had a guard come loose and I rarely even pin them. The last thing I want to do to a carefully heat treated blade is to heat it up at the fulcrum point again.
 
No offense to the collector (I value their opinion because I'd like to have people collect my knives at some point lol ) but the solder joint is mainly to seal the joint to prevent fluid penetration.

I used to silver solder all my guards but after reading the information from some mastersmiths I conducted my own tests as I do for any change in my processes. I made up 2 drop point hunters out of 1084, HT and all other preparations normal to the process. I silver soldered one and the other guard was pressfit using a piece of ugly hardwood that was slotted to drive the guard on without damage.

For fluid seepage testing I formed a cup around the ricasso portion of the blade using duct tape (what else? I'm a redneck) and left a nasty blend of watered down catsup/ketchup/tomato condiment in the cup to simulate the blood that gets on hunting knives. After 3 days of soaking there was no fluid seepage from either guard process.

For guard rentention I used the ugly wood slotted guard driver thingy and a 4# hammer. I drilled a hole in the bottom of the handle on the hammer to act as a pivot point and cobbled up a stand to allow the hammer to swing freely to strice the guard driver. I place the knife tangs into my vice and from a measured distance of 1 foot let the hammer strike the guard driver thingy. The silver soldered guard took 40 or so whacks to loosen up the press fit guard took 36 or so.

I can't forsee any events beyond some sort of catastrophic event that could cause either to fail especially backed up by a quality pinned scale handle or through tang design.

All that being said, if a customer wants a soldered guard I will solder a guard, if not then I won't. Soldering shows another talent and I'm all for it but to just do something that serves no purpose then I'll skip it unless specifically requested to do it.

Will
formerly known as badbamaump
 
The amount of force it takes to swage a guard on is hundreds of more times then what any solder will give.

That is like saying a master Japanese mortise and tenon carpenter isn't doing it right because he is not using nails.
 
welp. i did remake the guard today.and even though it wasnt a perfect fit it is quite snug. i do have a verry verry small spot of a tiny gap. i belive i will try to tighten it with one of the above methods. i also went to my local hardware store and found "silver solder" i belive its the kind previously mentioned. you tell me. the package reads "lead free, 98% tin and 2% silver " melts at 430-450 deg. is this it?
 
Will Leavitt said:
No offense to the collector (I value their opinion because I'd like to have people collect my knives at some point lol ) but the solder joint is mainly to seal the joint to prevent fluid penetration.


Will
formerly known as badbamaump
Click to expand...

That is absolutely true. I have not seen silver solder used for a guard on a damascus blade for obvious reasons. JB Weld works well and it is there to seal the area.

There should be no gap at the guard/blade junction. The fit should be tight. Solder, JB Weld or whatever should not be used to make up for flaws or filling gaps. I have made 3 guards for a single blade before due to the oops factor.

Craig
 
C L Wilkins said:
That is absolutely true. I have not seen silver solder used for a guard on a damascus blade for obvious reasons. JB Weld works well and it is there to seal the area.

There should be no gap at the guard/blade junction. The fit should be tight. Solder, JB Weld or whatever should not be used to make up for flaws or filling gaps. I have made 3 guards for a single blade before due to the oops factor.

Craig
Click to expand...

Knifemakers have their oops drawer full of knife shaped objects that they aren't happy with, and that will never leave their shop. In addition, I too have "oops" guards in that drawer. These are guards where I got the slot a little too large, or wasn't happy with the shape after getting it near completion. I throw those in with the "oops" knives, and revisit them from time to time to see if one of them will work with a particular knife that I'm currently working on. I have been able to salvage one "oops" guard from the pile.
 
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