I saw some knives on here a while back with thick leather (1/4" to 1/3") used for handle scales. I'm interested in this because I have some steel I have no way to drill holes in for attaching scales. Can the leather just be glued onto the full tang? Will epoxy do, or do I need something specific for leather?
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Leather for Handle Scales
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Hengelo_77
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Leather is quite soft.
My guess is that epoxy will be the only thing that will permanently bond it to steel.
Make sure to rough the leather up before glueing. At work we rough it up with gritt 24, but 40 or 50 will also do.
My guess is that epoxy will be the only thing that will permanently bond it to steel.
Make sure to rough the leather up before glueing. At work we rough it up with gritt 24, but 40 or 50 will also do.
i tried gluing slabs of leather on and it worked ok. i used duco cement which worked very well. i did change my mind and put neoprene on but the duco cement held on really well. i had to chisel off the epoxy and leather. just make sure to use a coarse grit abrasive to rough up the area you want to glue the leather to.
have you tried a carbide drill?
have you tried a carbide drill?
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And don't over saturate the leather with the adhesive or you will wind up leather that more closely resembles plastic...
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There have only been a couple of ways I have scene leather used for stuff like that but not sure if it would give the effect you are looking for. One method is using epoxy of sorts and leather dust and you make basically a leather based putty that is worked into the general shape then sanded to form the handle. Its more of a rudamentary type style but can be useful. I mainly see people doing it on leather working tools.
I have scene leather used as a wrap style handle. Basically the leather is wrapped and glued at the same time but that would be more for a hidden tang type. Neither of these methods IMHO are as good as the leather disk method for a hidden tang knife.
Theoretically you could either use a couple of thick pieces or several thin pieces laminated together then epoxied on and shaped, not sure how well this would hold up though.
EDIT: totally forgot about all the braided style handles, dont think that will work on a flat type base but I dont have much experience with the braiding of handles and such.
I have scene leather used as a wrap style handle. Basically the leather is wrapped and glued at the same time but that would be more for a hidden tang type. Neither of these methods IMHO are as good as the leather disk method for a hidden tang knife.
Theoretically you could either use a couple of thick pieces or several thin pieces laminated together then epoxied on and shaped, not sure how well this would hold up though.
EDIT: totally forgot about all the braided style handles, dont think that will work on a flat type base but I dont have much experience with the braiding of handles and such.
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