Scales How-To

Idaho Jarhead

Idaho Jarhead

Joined
Nov 2, 2007
Messages
1,415
I appreciate all the work you BladeSmiths do and have no intention of getting into the business. I do think, though, that it would be fun to put together a couple of kit knives for gifts. (I am finding that gifting a knife is almost as much fun as buying one for myself. :o)

I am interested in getting a couple of the Spyderco Mules and putting on my own scales, but have no idea where to even start. I'm sure there is a tutorial or so floating around, so if somebody could point me in the right direction I would appreciate it. I am an absolute beginner.

Also, what tools would I need to do this?

Thanks much,

Jarhead
 
Oh ya...one more thing. I have found where to buy slabs for knife handles, but where do you pick up materials for liners? What kind of material are the liners made of?

Thanks again!
 
You dont need a liner, you may be reffering to a spacer, Typically with wood you would use a colored fiber spacer to offset the wood from the metal and give another dimension to appearance. You can get liner material at any knife supply, texas knife maker, knifekits, trugrit. You can also get the handle material. How are you going to attached your handles other than glue? pins, colby bolts, loveless bolts??
 
If you want the simplest route you can buy actual kit knives that come with everything you need, short of the tools for shaping.
 
Darrel Ralph has some great kits available, check out his website.

Building kits may be like experimenting with drugs, a progressive condition...
 
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I better be careful, I have already fallen victim to the drug known as Busse Combat. And I have found that my genes put me at high risk to becoming an addict.

I realize I don't need liners/spacers for synthetic materials, but I was thinking about having the contrasting look like RAT Cutlery has on their RC line.

I found some great G-10 material in one of the links that Robert Mayo posted up above. I was thinking about putting on either blaze orange or yellow slabs. BUT, I don't think a liner would look good with either one of those colors.

I don't know how I am going to attach the scales. I don't have a whole lot of tools for knife making, but am willing to buy some. The hard part is that I live on an island in the middle of nowhere, and the heavy tools, like grinders and such, are going to be hard to come by. I have the day off today so we going to head down to the hardware store to see what their prices are on some of the electric tools. Am I right in thinking that there would be a whole lot less work into putting on a synthetic handle such as G-10, micarta, or carbon fiber? What is your recommendation for connecting the handles, considering I have little to no skill and few tools?

It would probably be a good idea to buy enough material to do it over if I screw up, eh?

Thanks for helping out a newb, gentlemen!
 
If you're just putting on handles you don't need as many tools.

A drill press would be helpful so that you can easily drill pin holes in the right
place(s) at 90 degree angle. You can do all the handle shaping with files and
sandpaper. Of course a belt grinder would make handle shaping (and handle
ruining) go faster. If you want a shiny finish plan to hand buff or use very
fine grit papers (I use Micromesh).

Wood, including stabilized wood, is easer to shape than synthetics so your material
choice isn't tool limited.

Cutting larger pieces of handle material to size would really go quicker with
heavy tools. This is especially true for the synthetics (look at past threads
about trying to cut the free G10 that some folks are using).

Especially for carbon fiber, G10 and micarta to a lesser extent, you need to
think very hard about dust control including a respirator. Personally, I won't
work carbon fiber because of the dust.
 
You dont need alot of tools to shape a handle, wood is easier and less toxic. A good wood rasp will shape any of the materials and then use sandpaper to finish. I suggest 3/32 pin to hold the handle in place, that way all you need is a drill, hand or power, a bit and some epoxy.

A hacksaw is handy for cutting excess from G10 and then shape with a rasp. I have done carbon fiber and it is easy to work with but is expensive in slabs thick enough for handles.

For colored handles consider a black spacer, it should look pretty good.

good luck
 
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