Peining ivory baffles me

J

John L

Joined
Oct 28, 2004
Messages
1,330
I make slipjoints so everything is peined to hold things together. I have no problems with stag, mammoth ivory, all of the manmades. BUT....elephant ivory gives me fits. I can be sooooo careful, things lookin good, and then...disaster...splits around some of the pins whether they be scale pins or spring pins. I have been warned many times about heat in the leveling process and I shape the pins with new belts. I have been told that even hand filing or sanding creates too much heat at times for the ivory. Any clues here would be tremendous. I am about to give up on elephant ivory on my slipjoints. Problems is...I love the stuff.

I can only believe that after looking at a dozen Bose ivory hafted knives and not so much as a small hairline crack around pins....that there must be a way.

Someone....p l e a s e.

John Lloyd
 
I love ivory also,but its so touchy,its like its alive or something.I just inlay it with speedbonder usually,but if i have to use a pin i use a new sharp drill bit and a headspinner to round out the head.No hand hammer peening.
 
I've never worked with elephant ivory. Is it substantially different from walrus ivory?
 
Tryppyr: I think it is a bit more tricky. I also use walrus and do not have the same problems. Do you work walrus and do you have any tricks as perhaps they might work with elephant.
Seals: Doming or spinning might be the answer. But how does Bose do it? Don Hanson, for example, uses screws but I like the look of pins. I have looked for a screw that has a deep head. SO...you would screw the scales down with the slot above the ivory and then level, looking like a pin. Alas...no such screws in the sizes I would use. I could have them made .....but 100,000 minimum is a bit much...me thinks.
 
I work on walrus, but I don't pin it, so I'm afraid I can't be any help. Sorry. All my knives are hidden tang and I don't pin them much these days.
 
John, do you pein a head on one side and push it in tight to seat it? Then pein the other side. I then push it back and forth in the hole until it doesn't move and then STOP! I use a loop and check it very step of the way. Use a very small hammer and hit it with the flat not the ball on the side where the gap is larger. If it stops moving and there is a small gap then fill it with superglue.

I don't know if this helps but those are the tricks that Tony Reese have taught me. Sometimes it works for me.... Maybe 95% of the time;)
 
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I dont peen ivory. I know it may be different on pocket knives but for full tang knives I just put a slight bend in the pin and glue it in. The slight bend is in the middle of the pin and seems to hold fine. Have never had one returned.
 
The action on a slipjoint will cause a pin to spin and move and work its way out if it isn't peined on both sides. You could just glue it if it were a stable material like MOP but ivory will eventually break free.
 
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I will never ever even touch, not to mention work with elephant ivory. I don't think it will be right to use this stuff. Many animals die in terrible pain just for this ivory. I think we will give it a push if we will use it :(.
There's plenty of other stuff that can be used; why go and kill these great animals?
 
The same argument could be made about cow bone and leather. Lots of legally harvested ivory out there.... The suffering for many .... is seeing it go to waist!

If you want more info about the process without the guilt trip PM me.
 
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