Museum Model input please

Make a new bolster out of solid steel. It probably wouldn't be difficult, just time consuming. Weld it to the disk. Weld the disk to the handle. Put piece of masking tape over the small hole in the butt of the handle. Fill handle with epoxy throug the bolster hole. Stick the tang down through the handle, poking through the tape in the butt. Voila
Steve
 
ferguson said:
Make a new bolster out of solid steel. It probably wouldn't be difficult, just time consuming. Weld it to the disk. Weld the disk to the handle. Put piece of masking tape over the small hole in the butt of the handle. Fill handle with epoxy throug the bolster hole. Stick the tang down through the handle, poking through the tape in the butt. Voila
Steve
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Steve, the bolster is steel. It is brazed to the disk guard already. This is essentially what Yvsa suggested. This works well for me if it would be strong enough, and is also what Kumar tried to do in a lesser way with laha. Either acraglas or 2 ton epoxy would work I think.

I have a piece of turned hickory from an old hammer that could be turned down and inserted into the handle, but it would be a lot more work and would have to be epoxied into place as well so it wouldn't shift inside the handle.

This would be fast and clean. Thanks everyone.

Norm
 
Ad Astra said:
I'm going to school on all this... thanks, Norm.

The way they're put together the blade would work loose fairly easily; then that movement let the hidden stress point bust Steve's blade. :(

Which doesn't mean the other blades (mine) are any more prone to breakage than any other HI forged blade... the MM's are just prone to coming apart.

Wish I had your skills, Norm.


Mike :confused:
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Thanks Mike, but my skills so far consist in copying others to get it apart! That's about it. We'll see how it turns out.

Norm
 
Svashtar said:
Steve, the bolster is steel. It is brazed to the disk guard already.
Norm
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I meant solid steel that would fit closely to the tang with very little clearance. Then if it was welded to the disk, and the disk welded to the handle, you would have a properly supported blade. But the hickory should work too.

Steve
 
ferguson said:
Make a new bolster out of solid steel. It probably wouldn't be difficult, just time consuming. Weld it to the disk. Weld the disk to the handle. Put piece of masking tape over the small hole in the butt of the handle. Fill handle with epoxy throug the bolster hole. Stick the tang down through the handle, poking through the tape in the butt. Voila
Steve
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yah, solid metal on metal if possible. maybe even use overlapping shims that could lock down when handle inserted. TIGHT!

hey steve, care to share any photos of the new character mark? some of us are into that kind of education. no worries if you don't wanna.

bladite
 
Svashtar said:
So Yvsa, what you are suggesting sounds great but I am trying to figure it out and reconcile it with what Dan said. You are saying to take the front round guard / bolster assembly (remember it is one unit right now) and weld it onto the handle off the knife, which makes sense. And then I would fill the handle through the slot in the bolster with acraglas and run it on. (?) That's one option that would mimic the way Kumar made it, but it would be much stronger, welded instead of brazed..
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Yes, that's one option and might be the easiest and quickest. It would definitely be stronger with the Accraglass or JB Weld than it was with the laha.

Svashtar said:
But Dan is saying to get a peice of wood in there so don't think I could weld it up with wood inside. In Dan's scenario I would use JB on the bolster/guard and then fill the wood insert with acraglas and put it on, ostensibly leaving a bead of the epoxy around the handle/guard ring where it is currently brazed.
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I think the wood in there would be a great improvement; and no, it probably couldn't be welded with a wooden insert glassed or JB Welded in.:(
If you would be satisfied with the top disc being brazed on and the bottom disc with a bead of JB Weld around the intersection this would probably be the easiest way to go with the most strength.

Svashtar said:
Yvsa, were you suggesting I redo the back ring as well? It's on there pretty good right now, but I could get it off with a torch.

Norm
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Yes, by all means remove the rear disc as well if you would be better satisfied with all welded joints. All of the brass would have to be removed in order to properly weld the joints with steel rod.

It would mean a bit of work but would solve all of the problems of getting everything lined up in order to re-install the handle on the blade proper...;)
Make an aluminum or steel tang replica the same size, length, and thickness of the original tang, actually make it just a tad longer so you can also get the step between the tang and the blade proper as it is on the blade itself.

Then reassemble the properly cleaned handle onto the replica tang as tightly as possible having all of the pieces aligned as close as possible and have it welded. After it is welded you could glue or JB Weld the piece of Hickory inside, drill it with several sized bits not going any larger than the tang is thick. Then use a wood chisel to remove whats needed to get the tang to fit properly on the original tang and then use the glass or the JB Weld.
 
Bladite said:
hey steve, care to share any photos of the new character mark? some of us are into that kind of education. no worries if you don't wanna.

bladite
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Yeah, gory details just posted on the Catastrophic Failure thread. Looks pretty good now. Better than gaping open with bone & tendons showing. Sorry I didn't take a pic of that, was in a bit of a hurry.;)

Steve
 
Why not get a solid aluminum bar and shape it then drill/cut a slot through it? for a new handel then ditch the habiki (or whatever it's called) and plop the blade right against the front gaurd and to finish put a pommel nut and then a pin through the handel?
 
Yvsa said:
Yes, that's one option and might be the easiest and quickest. It would definitely be stronger with the Accraglass or JB Weld than it was with the laha.
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Makes sense, thanks Yvsa.

Yvsa said:
I think the wood in there would be a great improvement; and no, it probably couldn't be welded with a wooden insert glassed or JB Welded in.:(
If you would be satisfied with the top disc being brazed on and the bottom disc with a bead of JB Weld around the intersection this would probably be the easiest way to go with the most strength.

Yes, by all means remove the rear disc as well if you would be better satisfied with all welded joints. All of the brass would have to be removed in order to properly weld the joints with steel rod.

It would mean a bit of work but would solve all of the problems of getting everything lined up in order to re-install the handle on the blade proper...;)
Make an aluminum or steel tang replica the same size, length, and thickness of the original tang, actually make it just a tad longer so you can also get the step between the tang and the blade proper as it is on the blade itself.

Then reassemble the properly cleaned handle onto the replica tang as tightly as possible having all of the pieces aligned as close as possible and have it welded. After it is welded you could glue or JB Weld the piece of Hickory inside, drill it with several sized bits not going any larger than the tang is thick. Then use a wood chisel to remove whats needed to get the tang to fit properly on the original tang and then use the glass or the JB Weld.
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Yvsa, I sincerely thank you but you are way ahead of me! :confused: I don't get about half this I'm afraid. No worries, I'll figure it out.
 
ferguson said:
I meant solid steel that would fit closely to the tang with very little clearance. Then if it was welded to the disk, and the disk welded to the handle, you would have a properly supported blade. But the hickory should work too.

Steve
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Steve, I think I already have that, and can't see spending a lot of time remanufacturing something that won''t fit that much better. The bolster is not habaki, and slides onto the blade with very little clearance and is a good fit. There is a little room for some epoxy around it and the blade. I don't know, maybe you're right and I could make a better one that was more supportive. I'll have to see what the old one looks like all cleaned up.

At this point I am going to either turn the hickory down until it is tiny in order to get it inside the handle, and then drill most of it out for the tang, or just weld the whole thing handle and guard / bolster up as is and fill it with epoxy as suggested.

Norm
 
Svashtar said:
Steve, I think I already have that, and can't see spending a lot of time remanufacturing something that won''t fit that much better. The bolster is not habaki, and slides onto the blade with very little clearance and is a good fit. There is a little room for some epoxy around it and the blade. I don't know, maybe you're right and I could make a better one that was more supportive. I'll have to see what the old one looks like all cleaned up.

At this point I am going to either turn the hickory down until it is tiny in order to get it inside the handle, and then drill most of it out for the tang, or just weld the whole thing handle and guard / bolster up as is and fill it with epoxy as suggested.

Norm
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o get a piece of wood, with grain aligned for best strength (whichever that is) and a really stout firm kind of wood (cough). perhaps oak? maple? i dunno what's best.

o cut in half lengthwise, and of a length say, 3-4" longer than needed

o wrap/tape one end up (2-3" worth)...

o shape it so that it'll slide into the metal handle, the vertical cut aligning with the blade of course. see where this is going?

o now, depending on configuration of the bolster/etc... tape up the other end of your insert, remove other tape/etc end, and start shaping/cutting such that the bolster will fit on that snug when all put together.

o now the hard part. you get to figure out where and how much wood to remove with a small chisel, to get the tang to fit in there. use the tang as a template, both pieces, remove remove okay, until the wood can be put on snug as a bug.

o put a bit of glue on the tang/wood/ assemble/clamp

o touch up wood for best fit into handle/etc. i dunno if you want to put glue on the outside of that...

o assemble

o consider drilling a pin if you're going to use this ;)

solid, eh?

bladite
 
Joe, this is a clever idea, and I may do this. It would be way easier than trying to fit the wood down in there and drilling it out. It's hard to show how little space there is in the handle opening to work with. Remember that the handle swells though, so there would be some movement that I would have to fix.

Yvsa, you obviously have thought it out as well and I'm sorry I'm not catching on.

Steve, I see now exactly what you meant, and it's a good idea. You are way ahead of me on this. That would make it super strong. I'm not sure if I'm as up to the task as you obviously are, but I could give it a shot. Everything else would go together as is with the new bolster.

I'm starting another thread with a bolster question to follow up on Steve's suggestion, so hope you all will indulge me.

Thanks for all your help.

Norm
 
Svashtar said:
Joe, this is a clever idea, and I may do this. It would be way easier than trying to fit the wood down in there and drilling it out. It's hard to show how little space there is in the handle opening to work with. Remember that the handle swells though, so there would be some movement that I would have to fix.
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well, gosh :) you keep making it harder... how about pre-filling the swelling of the handle with acra-glass and inserting a thin thin tube of plastic as a "liner". you could make the plastic out of a piece of rolled up soda bottle material.

or just fill the handle SOLID, and drill enough of the glass out to fit a wood dowel... then you can drill the dowel externally :) slide that in... poof.

bladite
 
Daniel Koster said:
FWIW, this is handle I redid using a solid piece of mild steel for the bolster:

http://www.kosterknives.com/jpkukri.htm
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This is nice work Dan! The challenging part that I am facing is that to keep the original handle structure, it all has to go on in one piece. It would be quite a bit easier if I could just fasten the new guard and then do the handle in sections.

FYI, the suggestion about using JB Weld won't work. It would be way stronger using that, but it will take at least 15 or 20 minutes to fill the handle with epoxy through the thin bolster opening and JB will set up way before that.

Also, it sounds easy to just "weld it up", but in doing so the angles to the handle have to be maintained perfectly or it won't hit the keeper hole in the butt.

Finally, I've tried, and there is no way any wood is going to fit down in that handle and do any good. The handle has narrow openings front and back, and a big swell in the middle. Took me quite a while to boil all the laha out of it.

Right now in my copious spare time :D I am shaping the new bolster out of 1.5" mild steel stock. Once it is done and welded to the rings and handle and it has been dry fitted, I'll fill it with slow set epoxy, except for the bolster itself which will be lined with JB weld where it covers and surrounds the blade. I wish I could solder it but I only use a soldering iron for electrical stuff and have no idea what silver soldering a guard entails. JB should hold it OK I think. (Is it the same idea as soldering up copper pipe? I've done a bunch of that.)

The hardest part right now is getting the shoulders evenly ground on the bolster...

More as I have it, and make progress, or not!

Norm
 
Svashtar said:
I wish I could solder it but I only use a soldering iron for electrical stuff and have no idea what silver soldering a guard entails. JB should hold it OK I think. (Is it the same idea as soldering up copper pipe? I've done a bunch of that.)
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All you need is a propane/butane torch, some silver solder and some flux. Heat the bolster from the bottom side, until it turns to a straw color (be careful not to heat the blade - cool it occasionally with a wet cloth). Apply flux and add the solder. Trick = after you are done, take a wet paper towel (folded down) and press it up against the soldered joint, then "wipe" it off. That will help make your joint more smooth and even.

It can be a lot harder than it seems...and can also go very smoothly...depends on how close your fit-up it and on how quickly you solder it.


IMHO, JB weld is much easier. Just do it in a two-stage process. Glue up the guard, let it dry. Then glue up the handle. (I may be missing something...I haven't gone back and read the entire thread)
 
Daniel Koster said:
All you need is a propane/butane torch, some silver solder and some flux. Heat the bolster from the bottom side, until it turns to a straw color (be careful not to heat the blade - cool it occasionally with a wet cloth). Apply flux and add the solder. Trick = after you are done, take a wet paper towel (folded down) and press it up against the soldered joint, then "wipe" it off. That will help make your joint more smooth and even.

It can be a lot harder than it seems...and can also go very smoothly...depends on how close your fit-up it and on how quickly you solder it.


IMHO, JB weld is much easier. Just do it in a two-stage process. Glue up the guard, let it dry. Then glue up the handle. (I may be missing something...I haven't gone back and read the entire thread)
Click to expand...

Thanks Dan, but that won't work as the guard (bolster) and handle will be all assembled onto the tang in one piece.

The handle needs to be welded to the guard and I don't want to get welding torch temps near the tang.

Still, this could work. I'll just run the entire epoxy filled handle up the tang and onto the blade (which I have filed flat on top and bottom up to the cho for a good fit), and either have JB inside the bolster when I do that, or silver solder the guard on after.

Thanks again for the info.

Norm
 
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