How do pins hold the knife handle on?

[johnnyKnives]

How do pins hold the handle on the knife? It's not screwed in there or anything so why does it hold? I'm sorry I don't know.

 

[Bill DeShivs]

Properly pinned knives have peened (mushroomed) heads that hold the handles on.
Many makers rely on epoxy only to hold handles, and insert pins to absorb shearing forces that would separate the handles.

 

[Destraal]

In some cases it's not feasible to peen the pins, due to the risk of cracking your handle material. Regardless, like Mr. DeShivs said, pins resist the shear forces exerted on the handle material, whereas epoxy both provides a barrier to moisture and resists the axial forces on the handle material (in other words, forces that would pop the scales off, not shear the scales off).

As a side, there are special "pins" like Corby bolts that do screw on and work to resist both shear and axial forces.

 

[Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith]

Since there is no info in your profile, I don't know much about you. Properly filling out the profile will help a lot.
I would suggest you take a step back and buy two or three knife making books. You seem to lack a lot of information, and that can only be gained by reading and study.
After reading all the stickies and a few books, I would venture a guess that most of your queries will be fully answered.

 

[12345678910]

Since there is no info in your profile, I don't know much about you. Properly filling out the profile will help a lot.

I would suggest you take a step back and buy two or three knife making books. You seem to lack a lot of information, and that can only be gained by reading and study.

After reading all the stickies and a few books, I would venture a guess that most of your queries will be fully answered.

Have you seen this ?

The Standard Reply to Newbies v6

The answer to a 13 year old student is different than to a 40 year old engineer, and you may have a helpful neighbour.
We can often recommend a local supplier, but that depends on where you are.
Fill out your profile with your location (Country and State at least), age, education, employment.

Look at the stickies at the top, many are expired, but not all.

The basic process in the simplest terms
http://www.hossom.com/jonesy/

This is a very detailed set of instructions by Stacy Apelt.
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=694673


Books

A list of books and videos on the KnifeDogs Forum
http://www.knifedogs.com/showthread.php?t=5285

BladeForums - E-books or book previews Google books
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=603203

I like:
David Boye-Step by Step Knifemaking
Tim McCreight-Custom Knifemaking: 10 Projects from a Master Craftsman
These are clear, well organized, widely available and inexpensive too.

Knife Design:
On the Google books thread, you can find
LLoyd Harding drawings
and
the Loveless book with large variety of proven classic styles.

Forging Books:
Lorelei Sims-The Backyard Blacksmith
A good modern book with great photos for forging in general - no knifemaking.

Jim Hrisoulas- has 3 books on forging knives, Check for the cheaper paperback editions.
The Complete Bladesmith: Forging Your Way To Perfection
The Pattern-Welded Blade: Artistry In Iron
The Master Bladesmith: Advanced Studies In Steel


The $50 knife shop
It is popular, but it confused me for a long time.
Forging is NOT necessary, you can just file and grind everything away to create a knife (stock removal)

The goop quench is total Bull, commercially made quench oils are cheap and easily available, even grocery store canola oil works much better.

Junkyard steels require the skills of an experienced smith to identify the steel and heat treat it properly.
You can buy proper steel like 1084 very cheaply.
(Mentioned in the new edition)

I like cable damascus, but that is an advanced project for an experienced smith and has no place in a beginners book.

The home built grinders are the best thing about the book, but there is now a huge amount of info on home built 2x72 belt grinders on the web.
The revised edition of this book should have included this.


Videos

Heat Treating Basics Video-downloadable
http://www.archive.org/download/gov.ntis.ava08799vnb1/ava08799vnb1_512kb.mp4

Many specific how to knifemaking videos are available.
Some are better than others, but all better than nothing.

The best overall Knifemaking video I have seen is
“Steve Johnson-Making a Sub-Hilt Fighter”

The best video on leather sheath making I have seen is
“Custom Knife Sheaths -Chuck Burrows - Wild Rose”

You can see a list of some older videos and their reviews at this rental company.
They are not the quickest on getting new titles, but some videos are worth buying, some are worth renting…
Rental wait times are measured in months, buying is MUCH faster, but more costly.
http://smartflix.com/store/category/9/Knifemaking

Green Pete's Free Video
Making a Mora bushcraft knife, -stock removal, hand tools, and neo tribal / unplugged heat treat.
"Green Pete" posted it free for those who can use torrent files.

http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/4995247/Greenpete_s__Knifemaking_Basics_-_Make_a_Mora_Bushcraft_Knife
You can also find it on YouTube broken into 4 parts.


Steel
The “welding steel” at Home Depot/Lowes… is useless for knives.
If you want to ship out for heat treating, you can use ATS34 or 440C, plus many others.

If you want to heat treat yourself, find some 1070, 1080, 1084,
1084 FG sold by Aldo Bruno is formulated just for knifemaking.

You can find lists of suppliers here
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=699736

Aldo’s website inventory is unreliable, call instead.
http://njsteelbaron.com/


Heat Treating
You do not have to buy a lot of equipment to start with.
You can send out for heat treating, 10 or 15 $ per blade

This is a PDF brochure which gives good general info
http://www.buckknives.com/resources/pdf/Paul_Bos_Brochure.pdf

http://www.petersheattreat.com/
http://www.texasknife.com/vcom/about_us.php
http://www.knifemaker.ca/ (Canadian)
and others


Grinder / Tools

Hand Tools
You can do it all by hand with files and abrasive paper.
The Green Pete video does it this way.

Photo of a nice bevel filing jig .
http://www.flemingknives.com/imagesPrime/FileStation/KPicB007.jpg

Entry Level Grinders
Many makers start with the Sears Craftsman 2x42 belt grinder.


DIY 2 x 72” Belt Grinders

KMG Clone
Free Plans
http://www.dfoggknives.com/PDF/GrinderPlans.pdf

NWG No Weld Grinder
http://www.usaknifemaker.com/plans-for-the-no-weld-grinder-sander-nearly-50-pages-p-723.html

EERF Grinder (EERF =“Free” backwards)
Free plans
http://wilmontgrinders.com/EERFGrinder.aspx
http://blindhogg.com/blueprints.html

Buy the kit
http://polarbearforge.com/grinder_kit.html


glue.

 

[Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith]

Yes, I wrote a lot of it.