My first Bowie/present for a friend WIP (fingers corssed)

What you need to realize is stacking thinner pieces of metal won't really look like a carved guard. Nicks guard was made from much thicker stock. To get the basic effect you need to do a few things. One is the pieces have to be firmly locked together in shaping. If not, they will never align in assembly. Some sort of alignment pins, rivets, or screws are the simplest way to do this. The second is that every joint will probably show, so take advantage of that. Put a contrasting metal or a black/red spacer in the joint. Brass between nickel or stainless works, as well as thin G-10.
Your stack should be at least 3/4" high, and 1" is not too much.

Knowing a bit about your methods and style, here is what may work well for you ( this varies a bit from the alignment pins method used by Nick and others, but is simpler):

1) As suggested before, make a work "blade" to do the shaping on. It is just a close copy of the tang with the blade part just a 4-5" bar of steel you can grip. It is a good idea to make the tang part at the shoulders a tad thinner than the actual blade so the finished guard can be filed to a snug fit after shaping. Nothing sucks worse than making a beautiful guard and finding out it has too large a slot for the blade.
2) Make the pieces for the assembled guard a bit oversize. This allows shaping to true things up. Slot these pieces to slip on the work blade snugly. At this point, they are just being stacked...no need to shape anything, yet.
3) Make a short tang piece ( called a mandrel) that will fit the stack from the tang side. It should have wide shoulders that the guard pieces will fit against and nothing projecting more than 1/4" past the blade/ricasso side of the stack. This is to put the guard stack on and clamp in the drill press vise for drilling alignment holes. It should fit tightly on the stack.
4) Drill the stack - Put the mandrel in the drill press vise, and put the guard stack on it so the ricasso piece is on the top. Use a 1/8" drill bit to drill two holes for the alignment pins. The holes should be perfectly aligned with the centerline of the slot and be placed so they drill through the whole stack and will fall within the handle area on the handle side. Once you have checked the position for the holes, drill the whole stack through at those two places. When the first hole is drilled. stick a piece of 1/8" rivet stock in it to keep the pieces from moving when the second hole is drilled.
5) Make the stack one piece- Once the stack is drilled, remove the pieces, keeping the alignment of the holes in order. Clean up any burrs as needed, and chamfer or ream the ricasso side holes and the handle side holes. Using some rivet stick in a similar metal to the guard, assemble the stack. Trim the rivet length to 1/4" longer than the stack and rivet the whole assembly solid. It should be very firmly together when done. The excess where riveted will be trimmed later on, but for now, leave the rivet heads there.
6) Shape the guard - On and off the work handle, shape the guard with files rotary tools, sandpaper. etc., until it looks like what you want. Use the grinder only as needed for basic shaping, as mistakes happen fast on the grinder.
7) Fit it to the actual knife - Once it is 90% there, file the slot as needed so it fits the actual blade. At this time you will need to file the rivet heads flush. The blade should be taped up to the ricasso to prevent scratches. You can now do the final shaping of the handle/guard fit with sandpaper. Once fully shaped and fitted, it can be slipped on and off the tang as a unit in preparation of the final glue-up of the handle.
A good tip for fitting the assembled guard to the actual tang is to use a rotary tool and a burr and relieve (widen) the back side of the slot up to within about 1/4" from the front. This makes doing the final filing and fitting much easier than trying to fit a 3/4" long slot :)
 
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Stacy, I appreciate you putting the time into that post and it's definitely useful info. But maybe my post came off confusing. I was referring to the handle looking like Nicks. The stacked spacers and the oval guard are going just like they are. I have the front of the guard polished and finished. It's basically all about from the back of the guard from here on out (I think). I like the shape of the handle itself is what I'm going for. Although I don't know if I'm going to attempt that "double curve" on the bottom of the handle. I was thinking more a curved handle with the sides flat where you're pin will go then have that curved on section that flares out at the butt.

Part of me wants to finish the very front of the handle by the guard then glue it up, drill the pin, pin it, then finish the rest of the handle. Just on case it does chip out when I drill it I'll be able to sand it down as I'm shaping it so it might eliminate a chip out. But I'm not sure if I want to do that our finish the handle before I attach it.
 
Fletch-

It sounds like you should try bedding your handle. Lots of folks are intimidated by it, but it's actually really simple. Just coat your tang with a thin, even coat of a release agent (I use good 'ol Johnson's paste wax--- the same stuff my Grandma has used on her Pecan wood floors for 55 years :)).

Glue it up with a quality epoxy or bedding agent (I use Acraglas) and then pull it apart the next day and remove the wax. The handle will come off and go back on exactly where it needs to be.


Put a few pieces of masking tape on the bottom side of your handle when you drill for the pin, that will prevent tear-out.

Doing these things, will allow you to completely finish the handle out however you want, AND THEN do your final glue-up. :)
 
Oh BTW Fletch, for what it's worth--- if you go back to your original post and click edit, then go advanced... You can change your fingers from being corssed to crossed... ;) :D
 
NickWheeler said:
Oh BTW Fletch, for what it's worth--- if you go back to your original post and click edit, then go advanced... You can change your fingers from being corssed to crossed... ;) :D
Click to expand...

Meh it's been this long why mess with tradition :D.

So I was all set to bed the handle tonight I even picked up some Johnson's paste wax (not from Nicks Grandma though). Got home and was all set to go but then realized that when I sent this out to be HT Brad from Peter's called me and asked if it was okay to drill a hole towards the butt of the tang so he could handle it better and I guess hang it while handling it. "Sure" I said... then before I mixed up the Acraglass tonight it dawned on me that if I fill the handle with Acraglass it's going to fill that hole in the tang and there ain't no release agent, federal agent, or secret service agent that is sliding that handle off freely after it hardens up.

So my dumb question is: Since the handle has been drilled and made to fit all nice nice the way the tang is I figure my only option is to cut the tang where the before the hole hence shortening the tang a bit which I don't THINK should be a problem in theory but in practice I want to know if that's really the case before I take bandsaw to tang.


Crappy pic I just snapped real quick so you can see what I mean



EDIT:

One other question: Once I do bed this handle does it matter when I drill the hole for the pin? Meaning does it matter if I do it after the handle is finished? Or is it best to drill it once the handle is bedded? I'm just worried about it not lining up properly if I drill it and work on the handle (which I don't see how that can be the case) but again better safe than sorry. I figure the mosaic pin is going to have to be filed flush with the handle anyway then finished along with it so I figured it makes sense to have it in before I finish the handle.
 
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Could you solder and sand smooth the hole so the epoxy doesn't go through? That is if you think cutting it would cause a problem with what you already have done to your would be handle.
 
Yea, you shouldn't have to cut off that part of the tang, Like Mason said, just fill it with something. Be creative, you can probably even put some clay (or w/e) inside the hole and then put a tiny piece of duct tape over each side of the hole and apply that paste wax on top of that. Heck, you could even put a dap of super glue under the tape to make sure it stays no matter what. Theres got ta be a ton of ways to cover/fill the hole temporarily/permanently, but I wouldn't cut the tang off. Just my 2 cents :)

-Paul
www.youtube.com/Lsubslimed
 
Been having an issue with getting my pics from the phone to the PC lately but then I realized I'm dumb and could upload them right from the phone :o. I bedded the handle if it helps anyone I opted for JB weld to fill the hole in the tang. Put a piece of masking tape on the one side filled the hole and had it overflowed as it cured then filed/sanded it flat with the tang. Thinking I might drill it out as it might hold the handle on more secure after I glue it up (not that it'll probably go anywhere glued in and pinned) but I'm a little overkill at times.

Here's some early handle work (it's not going to turn out as sexy as Nick's) but for being my first ever hidden tang handle I guess I can't complain.







Today I took the tape off it because it's been wrapped up for a while and the last time I had a knife like that I started getting a little rust on it from the tape. Even though I covered it in oil before I taped it up I'm still paranoid. Took it outside for some quick pics. Handle is only to 320 grit but there's still some areas I want to tweak so it'll get knocked back down again. Amazingly everything looks fairly symmetrical I really don't even know if there is a certain technique to try and achieve this look but it seems fairly repeatable for a lot of the knives I've seen. I just went hog wild with files and eyeballed everything I guess I got lucky. I'll try to get more pics after it gets taped back up and I monkey with it more.





I feel the handle is a bit long but I guess it's going to go with as is. Granted I'm really choked up on it here and I have probably average sized hands (dunno I never really check out guys hands lol). Without putting my hand right up against the guard it's not too bad I suppose.

 
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Keep going, you are in the home stretch! Now is the time to slow down and be meticulous with the details.
 
Got the handle basically up to 400 grit today. I just need to spend a bit of time getting some marks out of the spacers and then I guess it's time to drill the pin (which I think is about the only other thing I could possibly screw up to mess this thing up) after that it should be smooth sailing. I do have a question though, something I was toying with today.... Where the handle meets the guard there is a thin piece of G10, when it's up against the guard you really can't even notice it, I was wondering if it's wise to add another piece between the handle and guard. Now what I have are two pieces of the material left from when I cut the spacers down. However neither is big enough to use on it's own to cover the whole end of the handle as one piece.

Is it worthwhile to make it thicker so the black spacer is double spaced to make it stand out a bit more?

If so what are the chances if I butt who pieces together to make it big enough to cover the handle would you likely see the seam after it's all said and done? The stuff is thin and I think it wouldn't make a huge deal in fitting the handle. The fact that the handle and guard meet kind of renders the spacer near invisible so I was thinking maybe double black spacer. Good idea or not so much?

Pics of just the handle:





 
I'd leave it as is. The spacers are there to provide a straight looking glue line in case there is any gap along the seam. No need for making the line wider.
 
Okay so I spent a ridiculous amount of time obsessing over getting the pin hole where I wanted it. Realized my press is so horribly off level it's comical (probably more comical watching my try to rig my vise up to sit level on the platform). Drilled an 1/8" hole just as a pilot hole then nearly freaked out after the handle locked up about 1/4" away from the guard after drilling it but remedied that. Next step was to put it back together and use the same bit to mark the tang so I could drill a 5/16 hole in it. Turns out while shaping I'm about a country mile off being centered in the tang. Which, I'm assuming wouldn't be the worst thing in the world since no one is likely ever going to take the handle off to see. However the 5/16 hole looks like it's going to be awful close to the edge which presents problem #2. Not sure how I'm going to hold the thing in place since there is a good chance the bit will hit my vise.

Could I attempt to put it in my knife vise and drill it by hand? If so will being off level (which is highly probable) affect the pin going in? It's a 1/4" pin.

Here's a shot of it not in the vise. And yes shop time usually equates to cigar time too :D



Here's where it sits in the vise on my press.

 
FTO_dude said:
Why would you drill a 5/16 hole for a 1/4" pin?
Click to expand...

Because it leaves a little wiggle room when fitting everything. I'm sure there's folks who are good enough to make it all perfect but I'm not one of them. I do the same thing when I do Corby rivets on full tangs. I'll drill the hole with the next size up bit than what is going in there. Any gaps get filled with epoxy so there's not going to be any slop after it's all glued up.
 
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