I need your assistance folks! I got ahead of myself...

Crayola

Crayola

Joined
Sep 23, 1999
Messages
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Hey! I made a boo boo that I think is easily fixable, but I need your help! I have a fully hardened ATS-34 blade with a tang that is 1/2" wide and about 5" long. One thing I forgot to do before sending the blade for heat treatment was drill some holes in the tang for pins. I am going to inlay the tang into some micarta and pin it as well. To soften 1 or 2 areas on the tang enough so that I can drill a couple of holes, can I use one of those "small" propane torches? The torch I have has a burner that you screw onto a 1 or 2 litre-ish sized bottle. What can I do folks? If I can't soften the handle safely, I still have a way of fixing things, but I'd prefer to have a couple of pins in the handle. Thanks a bunch!
 
Cray, how should I say this, well, your screwed! You wont be able to spot anneal ATS, annealing ATS is a precise and lengthy process. You will need to drill the tang with carbide bits.
 
Been there done that ;) Since its a hidden tang, all you have to do is either grind or cut notches in the side of the tang that match up with your pin holes. The main thing the pins do on a hidden tang knife is keep the blade from pulling out of the handle, with slots the only way its coming out is sideways and that means destroying the handle anyway.
You want the slot to be a fairly tight fit on the pin to avoid any rattle or wobble room should the epoxy let go, but other than that its not too big of a deal.
 
Like Tom suggested, grind some notches in the tang, and if you still feel you need pins( I hate pins) run them through the notches. Your pins will be high and low instead of center, but heck of a lot easier considering the alternative of the torch. I wouldn't even chanch messing up the HT. Unless you have carbide bits, I would do the notch trick. The carbide will eat right through the hardened steel, and use plenty of oil for drilling. If you want to be assured of not having your bit grab and break when the bit breaks through, flip it over and finish drilling the hole from the other side just when the bit is making the dimple on the underneath side. And vice the work. Maybe kinda long winded, but it will save you some greif.
 
I did the same thing not long ago.

If you decide to drill it, try using a carbide endmill. This will be less likely to break upon exiting the far side. And it leaves a cleaner exit usually.
 
THANKS ALL!

I was planning on notching the tang, so I will go ahead and do that. I really appreciate the feedback. Boy, is knife making sure full of surprises!

And now to hijack my own thread, I was going to use 2 slabs of micarta for the scales. SHould I inlay the tang half way through each piece of micarta? I was going to do it that way, but if I really only need to inlay it into one thick slab and then epoxy the other slab onto that lot, then I'll do that.

Thanks again folks, I feel silly but I am happy I learned something today!
 
Are you going to notch it with pins, or just notches and epoxy?
If your using pins, I think you could go either route. If your only using notches and epoxy, I think it would be best to have it inlayed in both slabs. That way it has to break the bond with both slabs in order to come loose.
 
Don't feel like you're the only one that's pregnant. I had to get an etcher because I kept forgetting to stamp the ricasso before HT :eek:. But, that's right - Just notch the hidden tang and fill the handle a-plenty with a good bonding agent. It'll hold up.

Roger
 
Thanks again for that great support AND information!

With knotching, I do have one question. The tang is about 5" long and 1/2" wide. I have my grinder which I can only flat grind on. It is a 2x42 from Sears. I can also use 1" belts on it as I have a 1" wide platen as well. I can "easily" make a notch say 1/8" or maybe 1/4" deep and a bit over 1" wide with the 1" platen on. Perhaps I could make 2 knotches that way, 1 on each side of the tang and staggered. Is that sounding reasonable? I just don't see how I could make a small knotch, unless maybe I get a couple grinding bits for my dremel, or feather the belt off the edge of the platen and grind into the edge of the belt/platen. Any suggestions?

Thank-you Bladeforums.com, my favorite support group!
 
For my hidden tang, I use pins and I make some notchs
on the tang with my dremel with a cutting weel like this:

456.gif
540.gif


I do not make the notches very deep... I think that, depending where you
make the notches, it should not be done too deep because that can
weaken the tang...)

Alain M-D
 
When it comes to knives, I'm not a maker, just an appreciater. So I don't have an experiential basis for the suggestion below.

One aspect of "notching" the tang (or any other inside corner made in steel) springs to my mind: That of making the transitional angle a radiused one to keep stress vectors from getting concentrated in a sharp corner. My understanding is that such square shoulders can be a factor in causing narrow stick-tang handles to break off at the blade-tang junction. By making the transition gradually along the surface of a radiused curve, the effect of stress vectors gets dissipated through the redirection of the vectors.

At a "nuts & bolts" level, my suggestion is to make a round-bottomed cross-section cutout notch for the pins to pass through (like made with a drill bit or a round-nose bit in a router if you're a woodworker), not a square-bottomed notch (like made by a standard straight bit in a router).
- round-nose bit picture
- straight router bit picture

OTOH I can think of a couple reasons this may not be a huge consideration in notching a 1/2" wide tang:
1. The epoxy bond, the structural support offered by the encapsulation of the tang inside scale material, where the notches are placed along the length of the tang, and other aspects of construction may prevent the tang from experiencing terribly strong stress vectors in the area of the notches.
2. Depending on stock thickness, the dimensional strength offered by 1/2" of tang width may be enough material to distribute and dissipate the stresses and torques being applied to the tang so that its integrity is not endangered.

Hope that's not too confusing.
 
Thanks all!

With some generous help from you folks, and a very generous offer from our very own L6Steel, things will be taken care of 100%! When this knife is finished, it will be a real benchmark knife for me. Lots of firsts, new techniques, etc. If it comes out looking like it does in my imagination, I'll be the happiest little knife maker ever!
 
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