How to best peen on scales, and pivot pin?

Bill DeShivs said:
You don't want to try music wire for pins. Use common nails turned to exact size.
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This defies what I thought I understood. If I use a common nail, which I can cut with a hardened blade as an axle (pivot) won't its repeated motion eventually either cut it, or wear it thin enough to wobble? What am I not understanding?
 
BradleySmall said:
This defies what I thought I understood. If I use a common nail, which I can cut with a hardened blade as an axle (pivot) won't its repeated motion eventually either cut it, or wear it thin enough to wobble? What am I not understanding?
Click to expand...
Before the "Internet" and modern metallurgy made everyone more aware of Steels and their Molecular Properties MAN lived in the dark ages of what was available and many Hundreds of Thousands of Knives were constructed of less than Space Aged Steels. I have Slipjoints from the early 20th century made with soft Pivot carbon steels that still function with YES a little play, but their 100 years +/- age is partly to blame for the blade play.

Lets get back to the Pin Size Problems....as a Machinist my brain is wired for "Decimals" not "Fractions", and like many others here have a Digital Caliper that reads my pin dimensions. I suggest that is the place to start so you know what the actual dimensions of the Pin Stock you have at hand. Like our Good Friend Horsewright Horsewright mentioned the actual diameter of Pin Stock is quite Different from the Drill Sizes used for making holes. When it comes to small holes I refer to a "DRILL CHART" that provides Decimal sizes, and small drill bits that are Sized by #Numbers rather than Fractions....But it all starts with the Calipers.
 
Bradley
now that you have shown a honest desire to actually do WORK to make these i will share a great trick with you..
take a piece of steel say 1/4-1/2 thick and drill the correct sized holes in it/// yes there are many different size drill bits
SAE/number/letter/metric.. then decimals for everything in between...
once you know the actual pin size (whatever it is) drill several holes in the piece of steel. put the pin in it and peen the leftover "Sticking out part"
as bill says a 2-4 oz ball peen hammer with a mirror polished face/peen from the outside towards the center
use lots of light taps like a jack hammer/tattoo machine.. once the head is made you put the pin in and peen the other side once the length is correct,
 
Busto said:
Before the "Internet" and modern metallurgy made everyone more aware of Steels and their Molecular Properties MAN lived in the dark ages of what was available and many Hundreds of Thousands of Knives were constructed of less than Space Aged Steels. I have Slipjoints from the early 20th century made with soft Pivot carbon steels that still function with YES a little play, but their 100 years +/- age is partly to blame for the blade play.

Lets get back to the Pin Size Problems....as a Machinist my brain is wired for "Decimals" not "Fractions", and like many others here have a Digital Caliper that reads my pin dimensions. I suggest that is the place to start so you know what the actual dimensions of the Pin Stock you have at hand. Like our Good Friend Horsewright Horsewright mentioned the actual diameter of Pin Stock is quite Different from the Drill Sizes used for making holes. When it comes to small holes I refer to a "DRILL CHART" that provides Decimal sizes, and small drill bits that are Sized by #Numbers rather than Fractions....But it all starts with the Calipers.
Click to expand...
Okay! I have lots and lots of nails :) I am guessing the 4d or 6d finish nails might be right around the correct size and I know I can move that metal :)

Here is my situation, since I am not building from scratch I have factory scavenged parts from what people bought at auction and are now reselling. These have the liner+bolster already attached and have some degree of pre-drilling. I don't know if these holes are simply there for marking positional thing or if they should be the actual final size holes. In addition I got matching back-springs and blades which are already hardened and heat treated. The holes it has are going to have more control over what I can and can't do simply because I really don't want to try to re-drill the hardened D2 steel (the blades are D2, I am guessing that the springs are either also D2 or perhaps 1095 or whatever else they may have used.) In any event, I don't have access to tiny little reamers or burrs that can accurately resize these holes, so I will accept them as gospel. I do have some calipers with the vernier ends on them, I will try to do an ID on the holes when my next bunch gets here. I have never measured the ID on holes that small. So I am not sure how deep the points of the verniers will go to measure.

So, it sounds like I could use the brass in every position, the only issue being that it would not match the bolster color. (They appear to be stainless, though they might be Nickel Silver, not sure how to tell the difference. But either way they are white metal that is shiny, and brass would surely clash. Or possibly compliment, not sure. As a locksmith in a former life, I have worked nickel silver so I am familiar with its feel, but I have not found any rod stock for it yet. I will search later and see what I can find.

I think I have some drill gauges, (I think they are, though they might be screw gauges) which would be good for measuring rod stock. As for ID measurement if the vernier points don't fit inside well enough to measure the small hole, is there a better tool for such tiny holes?

I have these
8849026-21.jpg

as well as some off brand digital and dial style ones too. But it is concerning whether I could measure the ID with those points in the 0.0625 - 0.0938 range of sizes.

Also, what is a good source for rod-stock or pin-stock? Ultimately, I will eventually make my own liners and bolsters as long as I can find a source for blades and springs, but I am guessing that eventually I will have to grind my own out some day and either get a HT oven, or send stuff out. But that is not going to be at least for the next 10 knives :)
 
Pinoy Knife said:
Bradley
now that you have shown a honest desire to actually do WORK to make these i will share a great trick with you..
take a piece of steel say 1/4-1/2 thick and drill the correct sized holes in it/// yes there are many different size drill bits
SAE/number/letter/metric.. then decimals for everything in between...
once you know the actual pin size (whatever it is) drill several holes in the piece of steel. put the pin in it and peen the leftover "Sticking out part"
as bill says a 2-4 oz ball peen hammer with a mirror polished face/peen from the outside towards the center
use lots of light taps like a jack hammer/tattoo machine.. once the head is made you put the pin in and peen the other side once the length is correct,
Click to expand...
Okay, so don't jump on me, but if I make the correct size hole and put the pin stock in it and peen a head on it, won't it upset enough to get stuck in the hole? I know when making rivets, you usually start with a clam-shell of sorts where you have two pieces of metal with a hole drilled down between them, so that after upsetting a round head you can get the thing back out. But obviously that is a hot process and we are talking about cold work. So maybe it is different.

I have done some riveting in the past, so I have "conceptual experience" so I am trying to relate what I know at a larger size down to this small size, but I understand things can be much different with cold vs hot, and brass vs steel or malleable iron or whatever. But, what you are describing is at least what I was thinking may be the trick to get started on the liner pins so that I could at least have a flat starting point when getting started.

Also, when doing the liner/scale work, is it better to peen on the liner side or on the scale side? It seems like a mis-strike onto the brass liner might be less problematic than onto bone, micarta, or whatever... But on the linersize I am wanting a flat head rather than rounded, or do I always make a domed head then file it flat if I want it flat?
 
One thing I have done to approximately measure small hole size is to use the back end of my number-drill set to try-fit and size the hole as close as possible to one of the drills then measure the diameter of the drill with a caliper/micrometer (or check the handy table in your caliper drawer). It's an indirect measurement, of course, but with a full set of drills you can get pretty close.
 
BradleySmall said:
Okay! I have lots and lots of nails :) I am guessing the 4d or 6d finish nails might be right around the correct size and I know I can move that metal :)

Here is my situation, since I am not building from scratch I have factory scavenged parts from what people bought at auction and are now reselling. These have the liner+bolster already attached and have some degree of pre-drilling. I don't know if these holes are simply there for marking positional thing or if they should be the actual final size holes. In addition I got matching back-springs and blades which are already hardened and heat treated. The holes it has are going to have more control over what I can and can't do simply because I really don't want to try to re-drill the hardened D2 steel (the blades are D2, I am guessing that the springs are either also D2 or perhaps 1095 or whatever else they may have used.) In any event, I don't have access to tiny little reamers or burrs that can accurately resize these holes, so I will accept them as gospel. I do have some calipers with the vernier ends on them, I will try to do an ID on the holes when my next bunch gets here. I have never measured the ID on holes that small. So I am not sure how deep the points of the verniers will go to measure.

So, it sounds like I could use the brass in every position, the only issue being that it would not match the bolster color. (They appear to be stainless, though they might be Nickel Silver, not sure how to tell the difference. But either way they are white metal that is shiny, and brass would surely clash. Or possibly compliment, not sure. As a locksmith in a former life, I have worked nickel silver so I am familiar with its feel, but I have not found any rod stock for it yet. I will search later and see what I can find.

I think I have some drill gauges, (I think they are, though they might be screw gauges) which would be good for measuring rod stock. As for ID measurement if the vernier points don't fit inside well enough to measure the small hole, is there a better tool for such tiny holes?

I have these
8849026-21.jpg

as well as some off brand digital and dial style ones too. But it is concerning whether I could measure the ID with those points in the 0.0625 - 0.0938 range of sizes.

Also, what is a good source for rod-stock or pin-stock? Ultimately, I will eventually make my own liners and bolsters as long as I can find a source for blades and springs, but I am guessing that eventually I will have to grind my own out some day and either get a HT oven, or send stuff out. But that is not going to be at least for the next 10 knives :)
Click to expand...
Digital the Quality is not important as long as you can zero them out...they will give a better decimal reading than the Vernier scales.

Also if you have time check out the Factory Tour of GEC Knives...just google it...you will see how Bill Howard produces his knives and he has some nice tricks for peening and grinding pins.

As for Pin Stock check out Jantz Supply for Stainless, Brass, and Nickle Silver....I use them extensively because it's uniform size and always available.
 
On the topic of pins, piening etc. This is a video about fixed blades, but there's allot of good info here.



 
Bradly
i was a "Smith" for 35 years so i know what you are talking about .. Completely different game/animal here
you are correct in that peening the pin COULD distort/bend it ,make it stuck in the hole. but this lets you make a rivet head on 1 side
BUT if you drill all the way through you can gently tap it out from the back.. as many have said "Pin gauges" would work
so does using a drill to spin the pin and file the diameter down until it almost fits in ,then measure it ..
the biggest part of this is to know what size pins you need.. what to use ?? yes Brass/Nickle silver/Stainless welding rod for tig .
 
There are many ways to accomplish a task.
You can do it Nick's way, or try mine. I understand Nick got very offended when I posted this (very badly done) video. I didn't mean to offend him.
This was the first video I did using video glasses, and the focal point was off-but you'll get the general idea.
 
Bill DeShivs said:
There are many ways to accomplish a task.
You can do it Nick's way, or try mine. I understand Nick got very offended when I posted this (very badly done) video. I didn't mean to offend him.
This was the first video I did using video glasses, and the focal point was off-but you'll get the general idea.
Click to expand...
where are these punches coming from?
 
I'm using O-1 stock and cutting the cup with a burr, then polishing it.
I seldom use the punches. I just use a hammer and then buff the pin head.
 
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