Is this common?

CUTS LIKE A KRIS

CUTS LIKE A KRIS

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Sep 28, 2005
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This weekend I was finishing my first real knife (pics to follow) and I pre-glued the handle slabs(stabilized swordfish bill- Thanks Rob!) to the red spacer material with Gorilla Glue. Once dried I eyeballed them to the knife and one of the scales had warped a millimeter or so! Both scales were clamped to the same flat piece of steel and were trued to flat before gluing. Is this common when gluing spacers or do most people glue the whole handle at once? Could this be from the Gorilla Glue specifically? I glued the handle on last night, clamped it down in a vice (tight but not as tight as I could have to prevend too thin of a bond) and the gap went away. Should I have to worry about it popping off at any point. The knife is not a chopper and I doubt it will be used often as it is a wedding present. Sorry for the long winded questions but the knife will be going to Korea soon and I am a bit nervous.
Thanks
 
Gorilla glue I believe expands as it hardens to fill all gaps...that might be the cause of the warp...someone here will have direct experience, though.
 
From my experience all of the gorilla glue i have used in the past has expanded. Not just a little either, it not like regular wood glue have to use very little of it
 
Recently was using gorilla glue, cut the tip of the bottle a bit so I could get more of it out faster. Apparently I ruined the airtight seal, as when I looked at the bottle a few hours later it had split itself because the upper half o fit had formed this rock-hard foam. This stuff expands like crazy.
 
That is the thing- I don't think it was the expansion that deformed it- The center of the scale had the deformation and there was no gap in between the liners and scales. It was as if as the glue dried it contracted in the center. Gorilla Glue only expands where there is a gap- when clamping onto an object it seals well- as well the foam has no structural integrity. I made sure that the scales were flush with the liners so that no light penetrated when looking in between the two.
Thanks for the input so far.
 
Were the scales dry and stabilized? My guess is that one of the following happened:
1. You overheated the scales when flattenign them, causing a warp to develop as they cooled later on
2. Scales absorped the glue and warped during curing
3. You overclamped at the ends causing a bow to form.
4. The liner material warped during gluing.

I would try sanding them flat if the liner is thick enough. Otherwise if the deformation is mnor enough, you could probably work around it through careful fitting and final epoxy. I would not simply try to glue and press them on, as the stress will always be there and eventually, they will try to pop off the tang.
 
The scales are stabilized swordfish bill (should not be too much absorbtion), I hand sanded it so that there should not be too much heat, and I clamped twice in the middle not the ends. So I guess the only thing left would be that it warped during gluing. The scales were longer than I needed so I cut them down a bit which reduced the bow effect, and glued them onto the blade. So far no ill effects- I will post some pics as soon as I get my name engraved into it (tomorrow hopefully).
Thanks all
 
Weird! I'd say it was the glue....but it might just be a mystery of science or evil knifemaking gremlins. Gremlins live in every knife shop and do things like warp scales, hide drillpress chucks, and wisk away small parts that you drop, never to be found again.
 
Problem and cause: Preglued the spacer to the scale.
The spacer is what caused the warp, I'm prety sure, as spacers are porous.
If you had clamped and glued the spacer and scale to the blade, it probably would have come out flat.
 
Gremlins- I knew it!!! But I thought it was FF's (F#%k UP Fairies)
Thanks Howie- my next one I'll try to do all at once- I thought this way I would avoid problems such as liners and scales sliding during clamping.
 
I sure would like to see what swordfish bill looks like on a knife, first time I heard of that.
 
Everything should be done tonight- I hope to have pics up by Friday. But don't let my lack of skill give the swordfish a bad name!
 
Chris
Don't use gorilla glue for knife making. Use epoxy. Gorilla glue expands and makes a real mess. It's believe its isocyanate based, so it hold well for a while. Also you have to wet the material to help out the bond.

I preferr devcon 30 minute epoxy and pins, rivets,loveless or corby bolts.

FB
 
this might help also: what i do when putting scales on my handles i take my dremmel and cut off disk and make some random gashes in the steel and scale keeping away from the edges mostly. this give a more suitable surface for the bond of the epoxy to set. on some i use a drill and go all the way through the steel on the handle.

on most of my knives you have to burn the handle to get it off. i dont peen the pins on these its just there to keep everything straight.

heak ive even cut some slots on the pins lenght wise just to make sure they dont come out.

havent had a problem since is started doing that!
 
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