Hammers, pins and peening...

james terrio said:
I think a lot of people make handle-building in general much more complicated than it really needs to be, regardless of which fasteners they use. It is just not that difficult to build a solid, strong, well-sealed handle that will more than likely outlive the blade itself - unless someone takes a saw or grinder to it. I assure you, any cabinet maker worth his salt would laugh at how much we fret over such simple joinery ;)

Cool experiment. There's nothing "wrong" with peened pins when they're done right.

But I'm tellin' ya, once you get used to using Corby bolts (which takes about a day) you'll seldom bother with anything else on a fixed blade. They're nearly idiot-proof.
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I totally agree,I use corbys on all my fixed blades, and I have the idiot part down pat:D

Stan
 
Corby and other bolts are nearly foolproof and very effective. If you are only going to make a certain style of knife to sell, they could be ideal.
If you take custom orders, or want to expand your capabilities, learning to properly pin is necessary.
I see knifemakers who don't hollow grind-because they CAN'T; knifemakers who won't mirror polish-because they CAN'T; knifemakers who only do certain things-because they can't do others. These makers always have an excuse why they don't do any of these things, but they will never admit they simply can't do them.
This is fine if your work sells and you are content with the status quo. If you are truly interested in being a fine cutler, you should expand your horizons. The fewer cutlery-related things you can't do-the better cutler you can be.
Please don't misunderstand this post. It is not meant to offend anyone, nor is it directed at anyone here. This is one of my pet peeves. I see it often with customized Italian automatics. There are a bunch of "customizers" who don't install safeties when they rehandle knives. They claim it's not necessary-that their knives won't be used, or that they recess the button to prevent accidental firings, or that their customer didn't want a safety. The truth is that cutting that tiny safety slot is a pain in the butt, and it's really easy to ruin the handle when cutting it! The safety is an integral part of the knife and should be there.
 
Bill DeShivs said:
Corby and other bolts are nearly foolproof and very effective. If you are only going to make a certain style of knife to sell, they could be ideal.
If you take custom orders, or want to expand your capabilities, learning to properly pin is necessary.
I see knifemakers who don't hollow grind-because they CAN'T; knifemakers who won't mirror polish-because they CAN'T; knifemakers who only do certain things-because they can't do others. These makers always have an excuse why they don't do any of these things, but they will never admit they simply can't do them.
This is fine if your work sells and you are content with the status quo. If you are truly interested in being a fine cutler, you should expand your horizons. The fewer cutlery-related things you can't do-the better cutler you can be.
Please don't misunderstand this post. It is not meant to offend anyone, nor is it directed at anyone here. This is one of my pet peeves. I see it often with customized Italian automatics. There are a bunch of "customizers" who don't install safeties when they rehandle knives. They claim it's not necessary-that their knives won't be used, or that they recess the button to prevent accidental firings, or that their customer didn't want a safety. The truth is that cutting that tiny safety slot is a pain in the butt, and it's really easy to ruin the handle when cutting it! The safety is an integral part of the knife and should be there.
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Definitely hear what you're saying Bill!

My rule is I never walk away from something just because it's hard. However if there's another option that's equally viable but easier then I'm not above using it.

On the other hand if something is easier and also inferior then I won't go there... I get the feeling that 1/8" stainless pins are probably huge overkill from a tensile strength point of view, and that the mini corbys will probably be fine, but that's something that I will be confirming experimentally before continuing.

The knives that I'm making right now are all 'standard' models for lack of a better word. So I'm very much looking to get the process for making them down to a 'T'. The corby's will be well suited for that task provided they're strong enough.

There's cases in the future though where corbys won't be a viable option (or suited to the style), and at that point I'll pick up the hammer again :)
 
aarongough said:
It was a bit of an interesting evening. I did the rounds of my local hardware stores and managed to get a full set of ball-peen hammers. 2oz, 4oz and 8oz:

YZxqxNZl.jpg


I then took a scrap of G10 handle material, along with some of the new 304SS pin stock that I bought and tried each of the hammers out:

Mm7HNudl.jpg


I9AGNh9l.jpg


The handle material is Black G10 laminated to a thin spacer of ruby red G10. The red is translucent and you can see that it's already showing up the crazing on the 8oz test pin quite strongly.

I then ground the pins back to have a look what I'd ended up with:

obAs5RHl.jpg


QC5rnGKl.jpg


As you can see the 4oz and 2oz hammers made it much easier to avoid crazing on the black G10, but clearly the red is very sensitive to this issue. To date I have never used the red as anything except a liner so that's not a huge problem.

I then took the test piece to the disk grinder so we could have a look inside the block to see how the pins deformed:

0M4gx6il.jpg


If you look closely you can see that the pin peened by the 8oz hammer has actually expanded along it's entire length, you can see crazing all the way through in the cross-section. Not ideal. It's also obvious that my counter-bore technique is definitely off the mark. Those pin ends want to be conical and they're crushing material out of the way to get there...

After trying all that I started seriously looking at the mini Corby rivets that I had in my drawer. I started messing with them and some scrap handles a bit more and I'm feeling more comfortable with them. I'm going to do a strength test on them tomorrow using some scrap handle scales, and a scrap O1 blade and see how that goes. If they're strong enough then I think the extra expense may pay for itself with much less stressful glue-ups, and also much reduced chance of scrapping a knife due to aesthetic handle issues at the last moment.

Thanks to everyone that suggested the rivets, it's reassuring to know that so many people like them!

I'll post a thread tomorrow about testing the Corby rivets...
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Stuff like this is why I always check out Aaron's threads.
 
When in doubt, call the techies!
That came about when I was looking at the West Systems chart of bond strength, and the numbers doubled when you wet sand- called and had a great chat confirming that.
The nerds at Harris have given me some surprising answers about soldering and brazing, too, that really saved my butt on a railing project that was bronze, copper, stainless, etc...all non ferrous. They tend to be great teachers.
 
elementfe said:
When in doubt, call the techies!
That came about when I was looking at the West Systems chart of bond strength, and the numbers doubled when you wet sand- called and had a great chat confirming that.
The nerds at Harris have given me some surprising answers about soldering and brazing, too, that really saved my butt on a railing project that was bronze, copper, stainless, etc...all non ferrous. They tend to be great teachers.
Click to expand...

It's great that we have this place so that info can get passed on too!

I've had great results with sand-blasting glue surfaces before gluing, however I realize that most people don't have access to that equipment, so being able to recommend wet-sanding instead is great! Thanks again for sharing!
 
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