My First Re-Handle!

Stumps

Stumps

Joined
Feb 9, 2011
Messages
3,053
I have been wanting to do a re-handle on a Buck knife for a couple years now. sitflyer (Duane) was my inspiration back when he was on the Buck sub-forum more often. He did some beautiful work on some old Buck knives.

I've had these two pieces of Sambar Stag and an older Buck 112 two dot sitting together in my garage for about six months getting used to each other. :)

I chose a 112 that had seen some use, but was still in fairly good condition. I didn't want to screw up a good 112!



































More to come……….:)
 
It was hard to take the Dremel to a perfectly good Buck 112. I knew once I ground away the first pin that there was no turning back. :)

Ground away I did!

It was cool seeing that this was still one of the frames that had the openings pre-drilled for the four pin knives.

I planned on using the epoxy sitflyer recommended a couple years ago…Devcon, so no pins were going through the stag. I had to take the rocker pin out and cut it down, then fit the spring and rocker arm back into the frame. I lightly peened that pin.

The pictures are slightly out of order.















 
Next step was to figure out how to get the scales to fit. I was hoping to do a half way decent job at it, so I went slow.

I made a small notch in the back of the stag where the rocker pin still slightly protruded.

The small pieces of tape over the frame pin holes was something sitflyer talked about to keep the epoxy from flowing through the holes when you clamp the scales to let them set up.

















 
Epoxy and clamping came next. I did one side, let it set eight hours, then epoxied the other side and let it sit over last night.











 
This is what I had this morning when I took the two clamps off.

I knew I needed to remove a little bit of the stag that was sticking out, but wasn't sure how I was going to do it. :)





 
I ended up using a 120 belt on my 1"x42" Kalamazoo belt sander. It had to be careful, but it worked pretty nice.

I did a little hand sanding also.

It was fun seeing how the stag was taking shape as the sanding went on. Did I mention that I love Sambar Stag on a knife? :)



















 
It was time to finish sanding and buff it out.

I had read somewhere to use white compound when buffing a knife with stag. I had white compound, but no white wheels. I tried my green wheel, but I could see it was going to stain the stag, so this will have to do as far as buffing the knife until a get a new buffing wheel dedicated to white compound.

As you can see on the close-ups of the bolsters…I still need to do a little buffing. That will come after I order that buffing wheel for the white compound. I just didn't want to get the green to close to the stag.

I also put an edge on the blade that even Desert Chris could shave with. :)





























Got to say that I am pretty happy with the way my first re-handle turned out!!

Thanks for looking. :)
 
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Ribeyeguy said:
Looks great. :thumbup: Do you need to put any kind of sealer on the stag?
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Thanks!! I'm still researching that. I have read different things from different people.

DesertChris said:
Awesome!!
I have been wanting to play with stag handles, so it is neat to watch this happen!
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Well, you were part of my inspiration also because of some of the beautiful re-handle jobs you did…thanks!!
 
Good job. Thank you for taking all the time consuming photos while working this up. DM
 
That looks really good! Was very informative and makes me want to finish the scales I'm working on :)

Def a work of art :thumbup:
 
Haebbie said:
Great Job you did, Stumps!!

Thanks for sharing.

Haebbie
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David Martin said:
Good job. Thank you for taking all the time consuming photos while working this up. DM
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keroscene said:
That looks really good! Was very informative and makes me want to finish the scales I'm working on :)

Def a work of art :thumbup:
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MTNDIESEL said:
Very nice Sir,They have some great character.
Thanks for the Share.
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Thanks everyone!

Two of the nicest things about this is that now I have a 36 year old two dot 112 with stag….the knife cost me $14.39 and the Sambar stag was $22.00. Under $40.00 and I have a knife I really like!
 
Very nice and great to see your step by step. I have taken apart a 110 and made a dozen or so scales for it but have never actually installed them and finished one up.

Maybe I will have to finish mine now.

Thanks for posting your project.
 
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