Pinning a hidden tang?

R

raythebigfoot

Joined
Sep 12, 2007
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709
For those of you that pin hidden tang knives how do you drill the hole for it? I usually drill all of my holes before heat treatment because I will go through 3 drill bits trying to drill through the hardened steel. But in this case it would seem like you would have to wait until after the heat treatment and the handle material is already on. The only way I could see doing it before hardening is if you were mortising the handles for the tang, but I usually just drill a hole through the block material and file the slot and don't use mortised scales. What do you guys do? Thanks!
 
Ray, if you want, I have a picture tutorial of how I did/do it and I'd be more than happy to email it to you. Are you hooked to the www via cable? If not I guess it would take too long to download all the pix. Maybe I can just put em in a file on photo bucket. I'll do that. I'll post a link in a few minutes.

See if this link works.

http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v413/L6steel/Hidden Tang Tutorial/

Oh yeah, the pix loaded back wards :) look at em from the bottom up. Need to write the info in I guess.
 
Ok, looked at the tutorial. So let me see if I understood. You drilled the holes before hardening, shaped and made the slot in the handle material, then placed a piece of tape on the handle material and traced the outline of the knife tang. Then you drill the holes in the handle material. Is that correct? Good suggestion. I did think about doing that but I was worried that it would be really hard to get the holes lines up perfectly with just a tracing and once the holes were there if they didn't line up the handle material is ruined. Any experience with that or has it always worked pretty well?
 
You could make the tang hole oversized, then won't have to worry too much about hitting it with your pin - the tape trick should work fine.

Or, use a piece of mild steel welded to the blade and tang stub - Robert Eggerlig was good wnough to do this for me once when he made me a billet - then don't have to worry about drilling through hardened steel.

Mike
 
Mike Mossington said:
You could make the tang hole oversized, then won't have to worry too much about hitting it with your pin - the tape trick should work fine.

Or, use a piece of mild steel welded to the blade and tang stub - Robert Eggerlig was good wnough to do this for me once when he made me a billet - then don't have to worry about drilling through hardened steel.

Mike
Click to expand...

Yeah I have heard of people welding softer steel for the tang, unfortunately I don't weld; but I think your first idea is perfect for me. That is exactly what I will do! Thanks guys!
 
Although I have only done one hidden tang, I measured, remeasured, and drew all of the dimensions of the slot on the side of the block itself. After I made sure the tang went where it was supposed to in relation to the lines I used the lines to measure up where I wanted my pin hole. Insert tang to where it would be finished, drill, done. before HT.
 
Here is the way I do it.
Make the blade , fit the guard if using one,I usually put a thin spacer between te handle and guardso put it on at this time,drill and fit the handle material,
now remove the thin spacer material,put the handle back on and drill your hole for the pin,put the spacer back in and try to fit the pin by releaving the pin hole in the tang with a dremel or small file . this make take several times untill the pin will go in with the spacer in place,once you get it fitted then do your heat treat.

Sounds kinda coplicated but it really is not once you get the hang of it.
 
Spend the $12 for a STRAIGHT flute carbide drill and drill the hole once the knife is glued. It will drill through the hardened tang with no trouble.
Del
 
delbert ealy said:
Spend the $12 for a STRAIGHT flute carbide drill and drill the hole once the knife is glued. It will drill through the hardened tang with no trouble.
Del
Click to expand...

Yeah I have also thought about that but my drill press only goes down to 600ish RPMS; isn't that probably still to fast for that?
 
SBuzek said:
Here is the way I do it.
Make the blade , fit the guard if using one,I usually put a thin spacer between te handle and guardso put it on at this time,drill and fit the handle material,
now remove the thin spacer material,put the handle back on and drill your hole for the pin,put the spacer back in and try to fit the pin by releaving the pin hole in the tang with a dremel or small file . this make take several times untill the pin will go in with the spacer in place,once you get it fitted then do your heat treat.

Sounds kinda coplicated but it really is not once you get the hang of it.
Click to expand...

What if you have to grind the tang down a little after heat treatment to make sure it's flat and get the scale off? Would that not make the handle material loose then? Or do you just leave the tang as is after heat treatment?
 
Sorry really don't know as I don't forge all mine are stock removal and i don't get much scale during heat treat on stainless. But just removing some scale should not matter.
Also on final assembly you want to fill the handle with epoxy and that will remove any slight looseness.
 
SBuzek said:
Sorry really don't know as I don't forge all mine are stock removal and i don't get much scale during heat treat on stainless. But just removing some scale should not matter.
Also on final assembly you want to fill the handle with epoxy and that will remove any slight looseness.
Click to expand...

I use stock removal too and I agree there's not much scale to take off on mine either but I do take off a small amount and not having done it before just wanted to get your opinion on the tightness of the fit. Thanks!!
 
Ray
To clarify my other post Once you have everything fitted up then drill the handle and tang at one time,I usually lay the blade on a piece of 2X4 and then shim under the handle to do this.
 
Quench point down and do not quench the tang. Tangs should be left unhardened. Don't worry about a sloppy fit in the grip, it is best if it is a tad sloppy if you may need to adjust it's position. The epoxy will take care of the slop. After the epoxy sets, put the knife in a drill press vice and tighten with the blade on a flat area. Use a wood wedge under the grip for support, and drill it all together. It will come out fine. There really is little reason to pin the grip if you have quality epoxy, unless the knife is a large chopper type, then I would use two pins. Randall uses a slop fit, and no pins. What is their record of success?
 
LRB said:
Quench point down and do not quench the tang. Tangs should be left unhardened. Don't worry about a sloppy fit in the grip, it is best if it is a tad sloppy if you may need to adjust it's position. The epoxy will take care of the slop. After the epoxy sets, put the knife in a drill press vice and tighten with the blade on a flat area. Use a wood wedge under the grip for support, and drill it all together. It will come out fine. There really is little reason to pin the grip if you have quality epoxy, unless the knife is a large chopper type, then I would use two pins. Randall uses a slop fit, and no pins. What is their record of success?
Click to expand...

Yeah the pinning I wanted to do I don't really see as a functional necessity but I wanted to add a couple mosaic pins just for looks! :)
 
I don't harden my tangs, but this method would work before HT. I drill and rasp out the block and then fit it to the tang. This allow me to have a square block so everything lines up nice and even. I then drill the block, or, if the tang is thin enough, just drill staight through block and tang. I then either drill the tang slightly larger or hog out the hole on the tang a bit. I then shape the handle and get the length of the pin right and finish the ends so that there is very little if any filing or sanding to eb done after the handle has been glued up and the pin driven through.
 
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