How To Re- handling my Trailmaster

ManRay

ManRay

Gold Member
Joined
Oct 9, 2014
Messages
709
Hello, thanks for checking my post out. This was a fun project and I am happy with the results. I know not everything I did was necessarily the "correct" way but this is how I did it. Any advice or constructive criticism is welcome. Most of the pics are just phone pics so I appologize for the quality. Any questions? Just ask.




I started with gathering my leather and cutting out squares a little bit larger than the handle. I had a bag of scrap leather I bought at a swap meet for $10. I'm not sure what kind of leather it is, but it is wax impregnated and extremely tough stuff. Some of the pieces are 1/4 thick! If anyone knows what this kind of leather is called I would love to know.



Gettin stacks'



Full stack.



Taped up.



Cutting the handle off was easier than expected.



What I found underneath, cleaner than expected! Careful of the tang, It is sharp! I cut my hands pretty good handling it.



Part of the reason I decided to do this rehandle was that the handle had a rattle to it. It turned out to just be these spacers that had become loose.



I can tell you the shoulders have a nice radius.



Out to the shop. Yes my shop is a mess. yes, I should clean it up. I used a chisel and a knife to cut the squares out for the tang. This method worked really well, and was pretty easy.



Full stack.



At this point I decided to replace the first washer with a piece of micarta. I used a drill, dremel and files to cut out the square shape.



I made the pommel out of similar pieces of stacked micarta. sorry, I dont have any pictures of this process. I epoxied it all up and let it dry for about a day.



all dried.



Squaring the handle up



Drilling the pilot for the lanyard tube.



Lanyard tube added, another day of drying.



And the rest was just shaping down on the belt grinder, mostly using a 36 grit belt.





Lastly I used melted sno seal to seal the handle up and wax it. Sorry, no pics here.
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Overall, I think it turned out great. I drew inspiration from the Falkniven thor bowie, aswell as the randall model 1 handle shape. It is definitely not perfect, I nicked the guard in a couple places shaping the handle, but overall I'm happy. Let me know what you think. Thanks!
 
ManRay said:
Continued







Overall, I think it turned out great. I drew inspiration from the Falkniven thor bowie, aswell as the randall model 1 handle shape. It is definitely not perfect, I nicked the guard in a couple places shaping the handle, but overall I'm happy. Let me know what you think. Thanks!
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Great job! You did well.
 
wish it came from the factory like what ya did. very nice work done there Sir. looks better than the factory kraton. hows it feel in use.....better than factory or.....? thanks.
 
jbmonkey said:
wish it came from the factory like what ya did. very nice work done there Sir. looks better than the factory kraton. hows it feel in use.....better than factory or.....? thanks.
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I haven't used it for anything yet but to cut air, But the ergos feel better than stock. I will update once I get some use on it.
 
That sure is a beauty you did a great job imo. I have a Fallkviven Thor and that is what I like about the fallkniven knives the nice leather handles. Too bad the TM doesn't come with a leather handle like you made. You may have a career doing TM handle replacement jobs. :thumbsup:
 
What epoxy did you use? Did you coat the tang as well? Regarding the micarta next to the guard, how did you shape it without ruining the guard? Did you do any pre-shaping? It looks awesome!

I have a couple of Trailmasters that need some love, both Carbon V. One is a factory second that the kraton is a bit loose. Been sitting in my basement for years and now I'm getting itchy to do something with it.

Thanks in advance for your advice. I love what you did with your knife!
 
DW Altom said:
What epoxy did you use? Did you coat the tang as well? Regarding the micarta next to the guard, how did you shape it without ruining the guard? Did you do any pre-shaping? It looks awesome!

I have a couple of Trailmasters that need some love, both Carbon V. One is a factory second that the kraton is a bit loose. Been sitting in my basement for years and now I'm getting itchy to do something with it.

Thanks in advance for your advice. I love what you did with your knife!
Click to expand...

I just used gorilla glue epoxy from the hardware store. I know it isn't as good as something like west systems but I'm on a budget for these kind of projects and I've used it on plenty of knife handles and never had it fail.

As to shaping near the guard, if you see in the twelfth pic down I shaped it almost to exactly where I wanted it to end up so I didn't have much to do there.

Thanks for the comment! Hopefully my explanations make sense. Let me know if you have any other questions.
 
I had a buddy years ago that made me a binocular case a magazine pouch and a belt and it looks to be the same color and thickness. I believe he called it Latigo leather that has been dyed burgundy if I recall correctly.
 
I had a San mai III trail master.
I eventually sold it. Should have rehandled it my self!!!
 
UCPOPO said:
Very nice work. How much did it change the weight or balance point?
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Thanks! I don't have a stock TM to compare but my scale says it is 17.45 ounces. The balance point is right at the front of the choil, basically where the edge starts.
 
What did you do about those little spacers that take up the windage between tang and guard? Did you try to fit them back in or just leave them out? In either case, did you put some epoxy down into the spaces between the guard and tang? I'm thinking I'd probably have put them back in and epoxied them in place, were it my knife.
 
G. Scott H. said:
What did you do about those little spacers that take up the windage between tang and guard? Did you try to fit them back in or just leave them out? In either case, did you put some epoxy down into the spaces between the guard and tang? I'm thinking I'd probably have put them back in and epoxied them in place, were it my knife.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I put them back in and filled the gaps up with epoxy. No more rattling hopefully.
 
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