Problems with Antler/ please critique

[AlaskanHunter]

I've been working on a drop point hunter and decided to use moose antler scales for the handle. But I had fits with the scales warping and twisting on me as I worked it. Any way to avoid that? Is there a good fix when it happens? Yes, I was using a fresh 80 grit belt to shape it, but it still got warm very fast. I tried grinding a scrap and dipping in water to cool but it warped like mad. So I tried an impromptu "plate quench" to cool it. Every 15 seconds or so I would press the ground side to a cold steel plate to cool it. That helped a lot, but it still tried to twist into a shallow corkscrew.
The other problem I had was with the brass pins. In order to correct the mild warp that I couldn't sand out, I ended up with too long of pins that I over peened in a somewhat successful attempt to flatten the scales. I ended up sanding them down very carefully, but I ended up with irregular shaped (and out of round) pins. Anything I could do next time to make the pins look neater, especially when dealing with a textured surface like antler?
Considering all the trouble I had with the scales and pins, I think this one turned out pretty good. What do you think? As usual, my plunges aren't even (not sure if I'll ever figure out that one) and the handle is a bit on the short side @ 3.8". I wanted 4.5, but I forgot to measure until it was too late to draw out the tang any more.

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[Fish30114]

I think your knife looks pretty good, the lines in general look a little washed out to me though...I like crisper lines when one can, the handle looks good in those pics, looks well fitted to the blade. I think that having oval or otherwise odd shaped pins is a natural with antler scales, so I personally wouldn't be to concerned about that factor. A while back I started stabilizing pen blanks with 'Cactus Juice' and it has been good to me--you put the object to be stabilized in enough juice to cover the item by 1/4" to 1/2" and then pull a vacuum on the tank it is in until it quits bubbling, that indicates that all the air is out of your being stabilized piece, and full of the juice you are using for stabilization--then you put it in a low temp (200 Degrees) oven for an hour or so and that cures the resin and finalizes your stabilization process--Antler is full of air to be sure, so I started stabilizing it too--this made a giant difference in the exact problems you are describing--I put my antler scales on a disc sander to flatten them out, and they don't seem to move on me at all since I started stabilizing them.

Good luck to you YMMV....

 

[pwheeler]

Yup, stabilize. K&G will do it for you too if you don't want to mess with it, just get a big batch together and ship flat rate!

 

[Metalhead0483]

I like the overall shape of the blade, and the antler looks good on it, but the pins look a little raw to me, for lack of a better term. maybe sand/polish them before you assemble the knife and drive them with a soft mallet?

 

[timos-]

I had similar problems on an oosic handle. I ended up using super glue to fill in the gaps and re finishing the handle over and over, and over , and...over again...over the course of about a year I must have done it 4 times, but now it is stable. Another neat detail you can do with those pins is use a little dremel and contour the pin to match the flow of the antlers texture.

 

[Tom Lewis]

A few thoughts about the antler warping.
1. Was the antler good and dry when you went to flatten it?
2. I would use a sharp 36 grit belt to flatten. 80 grit can load up and cause heat which causes the warping.
3. How much material were you taking off to flatten? I would use a bandsaw to thin the scale pretty close to the size you want. Then the 36 grit could flatten it pretty quickly without building up heat.

 

[AlaskanHunter]

The antler is quite dry. It's been stored inside the shop for 6+ months, and the previous owner said it had been kept dry for 1 and a half years+.
I was attempting to take off 1/8-3/16". I don't have a bandsaw, so I built a cradle for the piece and cut it very slowly with a fine tooth table saw. I know, not ideal, but I'm trying to make do with what I have. It seemed to work ok, and the scales were very flat coming off the saw. Then I started sanding on it. That's when it started warping.


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[Alan Davis Knives]

Like Tom said, use 36 grit to flatten. After 36 I only go to 60 on a granite slab for final flattening. Moose antler is very porous which allows it to warp easier, you can stabilized it at home fairly easy. Since it so open poured it really does not need to be under a vacuum like wood. Use several coats of either minwax wood hardener (available at most home depots) or the extra thin ca glue you can get at just about any of the knife suppliers to fill the pores before rough sanding. You had the right idea with the plate for keeping it cool. When rough sanding any handle material, I work on one scale until I feel warmth and then use a spring clamp to hold it down to a metal plate to cool it off, then switch scales. I go back and forth many times until I am final thickness.