Guard question: Which comes first?

[happycat]

I'm in the midst of struggling with the dreaded guard/handle interface, and ma curious to know how others handle this procedure. I have been shaping the guard first on my hunters, pretty much finishing it. then soldering it on, then, then assembling the handle, then putting it on and leaving a little extra to adjust to the guard.
This particular piece, I preshaped the handle first before assembly and there began my problems. Spend a few hours today filing the guard down where I had taken the handle just a little too far...... Seemed like theres got to be a better way. Which made me wonder how do you folks do it?
Ed

 

[Mike Hull]

I do most of the shaping on the guard before I install. I also make sure the front of the guard is finished before.

It is fairly easy to clean excess solder off, but is very hard to get big scratches out of the front of the guard after it's on the knife.

I usually put a slab/scale on one side of the handle with about 4-5 drops of super glue, drill the pin/bolt holes, trace around the handle scale, and then rap it sharply againt the top conner of the workbench to break it free.

You can then repeat on the other side, and then trim the large excess off, leaving them slightly oversized.

Clean up the mating surfaces(if you've already prepared them)with lacquer thinner, or acetone, mix your epoxy and assemble.

You can wipe excess epoxy off after you clamp the scales. Let it set up, and finish them however it's easiest for you.

I don't worry about scratching the edges of the tag, I just finish the whole thing at once.

BTW, tape the blade off before doing any of this.

There are more steps to this, and tang, and inside scale preparation, but everyone seems to have their own method, so I left that out.

 

[J. Neilson]

Sorry I missed your call Ed. Give me a holler when you get home tonght.