I Need Your Help Again!

ddavelarsen

ddavelarsen

Joined
Dec 7, 2000
Messages
5,179
Okay folks, here we go. I'm hoping someone will have a good solution for my problem - preferably not the only good one I can think of, which is "grind it off and start over." Note the gap between the handle and bolster. This is kind of a problem for a couple of reasons.

First, it's a $100 knife, if I have to start over on this handle I'm going to be working for negative wages. I'm at about .50 an hour now. :) Second, I've kind of gotten to liking the handle. You can't see it in this pic but it's a really nice set of tulip, with the grain matching up to the handle so well it will never happen like that again in my lifetime. So really, I don't want to grind em off if I can help it.

I thought about warming the knife to soften the epoxy, and tapping a punch along the line to try to swell the bolster into the gap. That would be a balancing act between enough swell and shallow enough divots I could grind them out without going past the moved part. I thought about taking the handle to near finish, using a razor blade to carve out the epoxy and filling the gap with white epoxy or superglue (can you color superglue?).

And that's pretty much the end of my ideas.

Do you have any ideas? Help me!

gap.jpg
 
I would try to sand a wedge of the bolster material and force it into the gap. I have done that on wood working projects and it is magic. It may be tough to get a wedge narrow enough with enough strength to push into the gap but worth a try. one key point is dont mess with it until the glue is dry.

It make take a few trys to get the right wedge shape but compared to starting over its worth it. In the future you may consider using epoxy the same color as your spacer material, its magic.
 
How about filling the gap with JB Weld. There was a tutorial on Terry Primos website that discusses how to do this for through tang gaurds that should work for your problem. You might have to change the finish/texture to get every thing to blend.

Mark
 
Here is one I used on a couple of my first knives and you might try. Use a saw blade (or 2 hack saw blades side by side) to carefully saw a uniform gap. I this case taking out the white liner material. Then get some epoxy, white, gray, black, or red what ever you think would go good with the rest of the knife. Also get some cuttings of brass, copper, stainless steel or something to that effect and run them thru a screen to sift. Then as you mix the epoxy add the cutings. When mixed well force them into the cut untill full. Allow to harden then sand smooth. There will be little swirls of the cuttings come out embedded in the epoxy and it will look like a really great spacer.

DSCF0064.jpg
 
This is just what I would probably do with it. I would antique the bolster with some light piening to let the metal spread out a bit to fill the gap. When knives take on an antique look, the tiny defects only add character to it or makes them not noticeable at all. I don't know if that's an option with this piece or not. Good luck with it though.
 
You could plan the divots as part of the design, and put a row of dimples evenly spaced all along the edge around the whole knife. May not fit with the look you're going for...
 
I think a little strategic dimpling or piening (decorative work) would look better than filled with epoxy where you could still see a noticeable gap.
 
Dave,

A $100 knife with bolsters, :thumbup: the price of this knife. Considering the the time and return, I would go towards the white epoxy idea. But the correct method would be to remove the scales and reinstall without the gap. That gap could lead to rusting problems in the life span of that piece.
 
Scales seem flat enough but the bolster end is not as far as I see. I would drill the bolster pins and heat the bolster with heat gun, it would be easy to get the bolster out, then flatten the bolster end and re-pin... This is what I would do... But sawing liner and epoxy fill would do the job as well....
Emre
 
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If you have a mill just set the knife up so you can run a small dovetail cutter through the spacer then cut a small piece of a new spacer materialthat will fit the dovetail and epoxy it in the file and finish.

If no mill then cut with the saw method mentioned above and cut a dovetail with a file or Dremel tool and then make the wedge and epoxy then finish.

May be more work than you want to put into the knife but it will work,You can always make another one for the hundred and sell this one a little higher LOLOL...

Bruce
 
Bruce Evans said:
You can always make another one for the hundred and sell this one a little higher LOLOL...
Bruce
Click to expand...

There ya go!
Start over from scratch and deliver the customer his $100 knife.

Then when you're finished, knock the scales off THIS one and go back with mammoth ivory and engraving and sell it at $400, netting the $.50/hr you were counting on from the get-go. :D

-Mike
 
You guys are a riot! Thanks for all the ideas - now my head is spinning. :) But you've given me hope, and I think this will help me get it fixed without going too far in the hole. Right now I'm leaning toward the peening idea, just because I want to beat on something! :D

When this is done I'll post a pic of the whole run. That'll be a couple weeks. They're all "$100" knives for some tourist boutique in Arizona. I'll tell the story how I tried to find a way to make cheap knives without going broke, and I've kept good records of my time and supplies usage. I think I'm not making any money on this one but it's a good way to get my chops going after 2 years off...

Thanks again, and since I won't be doing anything with this for a day or two, keep the ideas coming!
 
Here is what I did when I had the same problem.

Its as simple as going to home depot, buying a small sheet of pure copper flashing, cutting a thin strip and then tapping it into the gap and sanding it flat. Best part is copper is soft, so you can even spread the copper a bit into a wider gap if you need.

If you do it right, people think you meant it that way:
2.JPG
 
$100 knives have gaps. why would you want to make a $100 knife look like a $300 knife?
Polish it up and it make it look as good as you can and move on. Every time I tried to fix a flaw in one of my knives it made it look worse.

There is one way to fix it but your going to need a fixture. Guess what it looks like?:D
 
Fixtures! We love fixtures!

But I think I'm going to take my jeweler's saw and cut the white spacer out and try some sort of flashing filler. Copper would look good with the tulip, and I probably have some down there somewhere.

I still want to beat on it though. :D

Mr Kanter, I just cannot send out a knife with such an obvious flaw. The price doesn't have anything to do with that, except it's going to cost me. But it's a price that must be paid. What the real takeaway from this is, don't contract for cheap knives! :rolleyes:

Another pain in the whole deal is that the store is willing to pay (I didn't charge enough) a premium for nice handle materials... I don't think these knives deserve premium handles but that's what the store wants to market. In the future, they're going to have to pay far more for the good stuff than I've charged them for these. It hurts my sensibility to put desert ironwood, for example, on a machine-finished knife. Just ain't right.

I almost feel like a prostitute at this point - a cheap one! I question why I even agree to do knives like this. I think one of the main reasons I make these is that my father vacations near this town and always goes into that shop looking for my knives. The note of pride in his voice when he tells me about seeing them is worth a lot to me. Like most non-knife people he doesn't really distinguish between levels of finish; they're pretty much all the same to him. And presumably to other tourists.
 
adammichael said:
$100 knives have gaps. why would you want to make a $100 knife look like a $300 knife?
Polish it up and it make it look as good as you can and move on. Every time I tried to fix a flaw in one of my knives it made it look worse.

There is one way to fix it but your going to need a fixture. Guess what it looks like?:D
Click to expand...

You are shameless. :D
You have any *extra* fixtures that can be had? <admin, hope this question is not inappropriate here.>

Balin
Pithy tag line goes here, when I think of one...
 
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