Safest way to remove handle scales?

Brian Avila

Brian Avila

Joined
Jan 2, 2011
Messages
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I was curious how the easiest and the safest way to remove epoxied handle scales. I know easiest and safest might not be the same thing. I have heard of boiling the handle and seen the "manly strength" that is Nick Wheeler smashing handles. :cool: ;)

I have a knife that has a hamon on it that a person would like to remove the wood and do something different. They were not happy with how the handle turned out ( not my work ).

-Brian-
 
Ive boiled handles where epoxy had gone wrong and it works especially well with wood, although the scales aren't usually usable afterward.

Just my crappy two cents.
 
He wants new handles so ruining the old ones doesn't matter. But I don't want to mess up the hamon on it.
 
TheWeatherman said:
He wants new handles so ruining the old ones doesn't matter. But I don't want to mess up the hamon on it.
Click to expand...

Im pretty sure you cant ruin a hamon with 212 degree watter. now don't quote me on this but I believe it needs to come to critical temperature to ruin heat treat/ hamon.
 
Oh, you aren't going to ruin the hamon itself, I should have said I don't want to ruin the finish on the blade that has the hamon.

So if I was to boil the handle and get the scales off, what is the process?

Boil the water. How long do I leave the handle in? Does it just come off easily, like sliding off the pins easy, after boiled?

-Brian-
 
Freeze it for a couple of hours in your home freezer. This will significantly weaken most epoxys. While still good and cold, gently try to drive your pins out with a similarly sized punch. I'm assuming your pins are not peened.

If you find yourself having to hit hard enough that you are worried about damaging the knife, freeze it again for a while and try later. The cold really helps.
After that, if your pins look like they are moving, you can beging to drive something wedge-like under the edges of the scales to help as well. I like to use g10 scraps from by the bandsaw but a sharpened putty knife would probably work OK.

Good luck!
 
If you are not worried about damaging the scales, you could bake it at 250 degrees or so. That shouldn't color your blade any, but will affect the epoxy. Make sure you degrease the blade well first though. Use an oven thermometer to be sure of your temp.
 
Last time I did it I didn't peen the pins, I boiled in regular water for half an hour...maybe overkill. I guess there really isn't an exact science to it but I just used a knife to pry the scales off.

Hope this helped, and the freezer idea sounds good too.
 
Did some testing...

4980F555-52A8-4843-8CFA-3B89BE3F4E7D_zpstu7ziv9h.jpg


Boiled for about 10 minutes. came off easy... So I am probably good at rehandling a knife that a customer wants.
 
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