Properly Using Cutler's Rivets?

B

boy&hisdogs

Joined
Dec 9, 2015
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I just bought a Buck 110 and the proud rivets are really growing on me. For those of you who use cutler's rivets and leave them proud, how/when do you do all your sanding and finishing?

I imagine you would glue your scales in first, sand, then rivet last right? How well do they work with brittle materials and moving parts? Any other tips or tricks?

I sure wouldn't mind seeing pictures of your knives with proud rivets if you felt like posting them.


curlter-rivets.48.jpg
 
? The rivets on a Buck 110 are not proud? ( not on any that I have seen.)

Cutlers rivets are not left proud either. You use a small counterbore to seat the head and then sand everything flush.
 
4.jpg~original


This was a vegetable knife we used to make with them. We'd turn them in the lathe first to pretty up the heads. There is a counter bore they sit in and they're a few thousandth proud but they're basically flush. We'd press them together in a mill vise to keep things square and controlled.
 
Pins can be rivets, but cutler's rivets can not be pins. They are what they are.
Pins on the other hand, become rivets when the heads are peened.
Generally, exposed rivet/pin heads are simply buffed in different directions to smooth and round them.
Some are "spun," but this process can be very unattracted.
Pin heads can be cleaned up and rounded with a cupped punch also.
 
I am not a Buck collector, but the handle scale pins on the ones I have and have handled were flush as I recall. I just looked at some photos online, and there appears to be some variation between flush and slightly raised, though. Maybe they made them differently at times. I will have to look around and find one of my buck knives this coming weekend and take a look.
 
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