Help needed for project knife

[Gadsden]

Hello my fellow knife nuts. I am planning on attaching antler scales from this years deer on a blade. Any advise or tips would be great. Thanks

 

[SOFileworks]

Hey Gadsden, my person experience with stag scales has been that if they are not sanded completely flat on the backside, you're gonna have issues later on. Also, depending upon the width of the tang you are attaching it to, it is better to remove thickness from back side of the scale and leave as much of the natural bark as possible. 2 part epoxy works well for adhesion, and I'd suggest using a longer setting time for your first attempt, don't want that stuff to harden up on you when you're only half way though. I like pins as opposed to bolts for stag as I like to see the stag, not a bunch of hardware, but that's up to you. Since I'm not sure if you've rehandled anything before, I'm going to assume that you have and won't bore you with drilling out the pin holes and which order to do them in , and how to finish up afterward. If you aren't familiar with these processes there are a lot of books and posts on this forum that will walk you through that process.

Hope this helps, if you have any specific questions, feel free to email me though here and I'll answer any questions I can...but I've gotta admit that there are a lot of folks on here with a lot more experience than I have...so read whatever you find here and I'm sure you'll be adding stag to your butter knives and the rest of your flatware in no time.

 

[Gadsden]

Thanks for the feedback SOFileworks. This will be my first attempt at adding scales to a knife so I`ll see how it goes. I have read some of the old posts and have the basic idea so I think I can figure it out.