Please help me with this Mora knife...

[Crayola]

A good friend of mien gave me a KJ Erikson (spelling?) Mora knife blank. I am using it as a learning piece. By learning piece I mean it will teach me new things. I want to solder on a piece of brass for a bolster, and I've never made a pommel before, really. So, can you give me tips on the latter? I tlooks like the steel si soft enough to thread at the end of the tang. The end of the tang is 1/8" wide and about 3/32" thick, 1" long. I have ordered Bo Bergman's book on making knives of this type, but I want input from you guys. Any tips on making a pommel of some sorts will be greatly appreciated!

By the way, I think the majority of the handle will be purpleheart.

 

[allan lanigan]

Check the steel at the end of the tang with a file to check hardness if it cuts you can thread it . You could pin on bolsters using a carbide spade drill to drill the hardened steel.But i don't think you have material on this style knife for bolsters.The pommel can be shaped with files or sanding drums and finished with sand paper wraped on a rod.

 

[Crayola]

Thanks Allan. If all goes well, I may be soldering tomorrow.

Anyone else ever play with a Mora knife before?

 

[tim wagendorp]

hy,

When I started out 'making knives' in my early days, I used a lot of recuperated blades. A Mora blade was one of them. You can find a picture in my photo album at http://www.imagestation.com/album/?id=4292465873 (picture 15). It's rather straightforward. You can easily threath the tang in order to screw on a pommel. If ithe tang is too hard, just stick the blade in a potato (acts as a heat shield) and heat the tang with a gas burner (ie for soldering). Let cool slowly, it should anneal enough, but will not ruin the temper of the blade. In the beginning, i was not able to solder, so i just made wood or antler guards and glued them on using epoxy. Just drill several holes next to eachother and file them into 1 slot (try to obtain the best fit possible by working slowly and testing it a lot). In order to make the hole in the handle that will house the hidden tang, you can drill several holes in the handle and connect them with some kind of scraping tool. I just made one, you can find it at http://www.imagestation.com/album/?id=4292465873 (pict 37 and 38). Just make sure you prepare all the handle components first, test fit everything before you start messing around with the glue.

hope this helped you out a bit

tim