Newbie screw-ups

I

itrade

Joined
Jul 3, 2002
Messages
645
As I novice I can afford to post screw-ups. :D Maybe it'll help someone else. Or, maybe just let me get it off my chest.

I'm working on a knife with a Micarta bolster. There's a 1/16" spacer of brass between the wood and the bolster, fitted at an angle of 30 degrees.

So, what when wrong.

1. I installed the wood first.

Fitting the bolster and brass wasn't a problem. Everything very exact. However, when I glued it up, the clamping wasn't exact and one side had a touch more glue than the other. This caused the front edges of the bolsters not to match.

2. The wood I put on first was angled wrong.

I can't describe which way the angle went, but you'll know when I describe what happened. The wood was fitted, and installed with the join angled for the bolster. When the bolster and spacer were pressed against the wood, there was a ramp that slid everything right off the handle. Possible to overcome but a big hassle.

Again if I had installed the bolsters first all would have been well.

3. Overheating

The epoxy doesn't like brass too much as it is (I ran some tests). However, if you overheat the brass while shaping, the epoxy will fail and your swell little fittings will just drop out.

Moral of the story:

1. Install the bolster first.
2. Angle things so pressure will push the parts into the handle
3. Keep the parts cool when shaping the handle.



Hope this post will save someone some trouble.

Steve
 
Wow, I must live a charmed life...

None of these things have ever happened to me...

Honest!

Dave
 
Me Either:D ;) :D

Only because I don't do that style handle.Now getting handles crooked and things like that I know all about and still have happen every now and then.
At least you figured it out and hopefully won't do the same thing again.That is how you get better.
Bruce
 
I suppose I should have mentioned a couple of other things you two have never done. ;)

Burned the tip on 400 grit.

Cutout one of the scales upside down.

All in all this is a great knife ------ to bury. :barf:


Steve
 
One trick you could have used is to pin the bolster thru the brass spacer and into the wood handle. The small pins will run parallel to the tang and be hidden. Then the brass won't slide out.
 
Phillip brings up a good point. One thing I try to consider when building handles is not to rely on epoxy or any other adhesive to attach the handle. There's an undeniable beauty to a handle that has no pins, but eventually, and it may be 50 years down the road, but eventually the epoxy will fail. Period.

I have a couple of things that are 20 or so years old, and the epoxy has let loose on at least one of them already; it's only a matter of time before they all do. I'm reminded of a Kurt Vonnegut novel wherein the artist protagonist did all his most famous paintings with some newfangled fancy paint. It was beautiful and striking and made him rich and famous; but 25 years later all the paint started flaking off the canvases, and his paintings turned to piles of multicolored dust.

His patrons were, shall we say, less than pleased...

The moral for us might be: Use Screws. There's a reason Loveless uses them - you can be certain the handle won't come apart. If it were simply epoxy, or even if it relied on epoxy for much of its strength, you could not be that confident.

So I always try to consider whether my handles will stay on the knife even when the epoxy has, 50 or 75 years from now, lost its ability to hold the parts together. I'm betting none of the 150 year old knives we have now rely on adhesives to hold the handle on! If any were built that way the simply haven't survived.

Sorry this got so long winded - it's a subject of some importance to me because I see so many knives that do rely on epoxy. Some day they'll fall apart!

Not mine though. ;)

Dave
 
;) Nope I have never done that either:rolleyes: More than once I think,Wait untill you completely assemble a high end piece and when done notice you soldered the guard on crooked and thus have to destroy the handle and re-do the whole thing,it happens to us all.

Dave,Allot of the older fancy Bowies were put together with only adhesive and decorative pins.That is why allot are not still with us,the ones that we see were in collections.That is one reason it is hard to do the reproductions and keep the handle pinned on,but there are ways around this problem,it is called blind pins peened under the domed pins and things like that.Just thought that you might like to know this as you like making them also and may have been wondering how some were attached.;)
Bruce
 
Bruce you're right, thanks. How are you able to research this stuff? Do you have access to some of the knives? If so it must be awesome to hold one of the old maker's knives and sense the history behind it. Not to mention feel the balance and look at all the ways it was made. Lucky human in many ways! ;)

Dave
 
Thanks for the pin tip.

I had thought about it, but with the angled joint got me puzzled. I suppose I could have drilled it real deep before I made the angle. I did, however, drill little holes in the brass to create an epoxy 'nail'.

Still not good enough if the epoxy over heats.

If I go with a flat joint I could screw the bolster on. Hmmmmmmm...

One thought I had for hidden pins, is to use a machine screw and thread the blade holes (I think I read it here somewhere). A screw gives a lot more surface area for the epoxy and threaded thru the blade could only help. Kinda like the domed pin in the extreme.

Still wouldn't survive the 100 year test. But would make for an awsome hidden pin.

'spose I should pay for those Loveless bolts.

Steve
 
these are the collector and light duty. i use loveless bolts on every thing else. i get the 2-28 bolts at the h. store that are up to three inch's for my intargal guard blades like the bushwacker model tha i use 1/2" thick micarta on a 1/4" plus thick steel. this allow for making a 1/2" bolster that i sculpt out using a 5" contact wheel just behind it. your doing great. by the way i have never done any of the boo boos that you have mentioned :footinmou
 
I also use the pins to hold everything together so epoxy isnt neccesary. I actually dont even use epoxy. I pin the bolsters to the blade, pin the spacers to the bolsters and pin the slabs to the tang. When everything is in place and clamped I use super glue around all the seams. It wicks right in and seals all the cracks if there are any. One real advantage is that you can easily see if there are any missaligned parts befor the glue is added. There are no unsightly epoxy lines. The only time I use epoxy is for hidden tang knives.
 
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