Scale fitting question

R

Ryan J

Joined
Jul 14, 2014
Messages
233
I've been working on this project for awhile. It's a customized true flight thrower. I had to save for a bit before I could order g10 for handle scales. While I was waiting I added some vine work around the entire handle and halfway down the blade. Then I stone washed the whole thing and sanded smooth and polished the facets of the vine. I neglected to remember that I had to sand the scales down to size while attached to the knife. So my question is, is there a way to precisely fit my scales without attaching them and sanding? The sander cannot touch the vine pattern or it will remove the stone washed finish.
 
Use a sanding drum with a bearing. You can buy them pretty cheap and mount it in your drill press. By keeping the drum slightly above the bottom edge of the scale you'll get the shaping done without touching the edge of the blade.
 
Interference Fit Co. said:
Use a sanding drum with a bearing. You can buy them pretty cheap and mount it in your drill press. By keeping the drum slightly above the bottom edge of the scale you'll get the shaping done without touching the edge of the blade.
Click to expand...

Awesome. Did a quick Google search to find out what that is and it should work perfectly. I found one with a rubber contact roller for $20. Thank you
 
heres a pic of the spine. To be honest I wasn't even going to put up pics of this project is because I'm not very happy with it. I learned a lot about what not to do. I can only get one pic to post at a time on mobile so I'll put the other pic below. The vine turned out well I thought. The finish was an experiment. Took some time to square and smooth everything out after removing the epoxy coating. Its a $25 knife because they spend no time finishing it. Tried about 5 different ways to force patina and didn't like them. Ended up sanding that off and stonewashing it. Think I should of went with the Caswell black oxide kit I was considering. Had to hand sand the blade quite a few times. My one major regret is the hole in the side. It said China there. I wanted to mill a straight groove like a mini fuller there to remove it. Didn't have the equipment. Tried with a dremel. Let's just say that didn't work out. Ended up just drilling it out and using a file to square it. It was so hard on the blade side that it cost me 3 bits, 1 file, and about 6 hours to make that notch. It still didn't turn out square like I wanted it. Lesson learned I guess. I'm sure it weakened it, not sure how much. The knifes just going to go with me camping to eat with and make fire fuzzies or whatever. Not going to baton a tree in two so it should be strong enough. Anyway, I guess it's okay for a first attempt.
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[/url][/IMG] the handle shape turned out good and fits my hand well. The hole makes me cringe
 
Interference Fit Co. said:
Use a sanding drum with a bearing. You can buy them pretty cheap and mount it in your drill press. By keeping the drum slightly above the bottom edge of the scale you'll get the shaping done without touching the edge of the blade.
Click to expand...

Not sure about your drill press but putting a sideways load on a bit might not be the best thing to do. Most presses don't have bearings to absorb the pressure being put on the bit that way. I could be misunderstanding though.

To OP. I wonder if you could possibly tape the spine a bunch or possibly tape some foil or something heavier to it that would protect it when shaping the handle?
 
creature7 said:
Not sure about your drill press but putting a sideways load on a bit might not be the best thing to do. Most presses don't have bearings to absorb the pressure being put on the bit that way. I could be misunderstanding though.

To OP. I wonder if you could possibly tape the spine a bunch or possibly tape some foil or something heavier to it that would protect it when shaping the handle?
Click to expand...

This is good advice to give someone thinking about buying one of those bolt down X-Y tables to mill with in their drill press.

You're correct when it comes to trying to mill, the small taper that holds in the drill chuck cannot resist the side-loading, and more importantly it can't resist force pulling the chuck down when milling with only the side of the cutter. The deal with the sanding drums is that they don't generate anywhere near side load that an endmill encounters when they're used correctly, and zero load pulling it downward. As long as you have a reasonably good fit in the taper that holds the chuck on, you should be fine.
 
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