shop tip thread

When you are drilling the pin holes through wood handle scales (or other material, but especially wood) make sure you drill with the tang side of the scale resting on the drill press work table. This way if the the scale isn't exactly parallel, and they rarely are, the angle of your drill hole will be the same on your knife tang.
 
When fitting a solid handle,chamfer the hole to within 1/8-1/16" of the edge .Then when fitting the handle to the guard/bolster you can clearly see the high places to sand down.It also allows more epoxy to contact the guard,thus making a more snug fitting.
 
Make sure your bucket for cooling off the tongs is high enough that the dogs don't P in it. HEHEHEHE!!!
OK, I did it too.:eek: :eek: :eek:
 
I use pre moistened towels (scrubs in a bucket) to clean my hands in the shop to save the bathroom towels and my marriage. It never felt right throwing them away after just one use especially if they're not that dirty, now I save them but they get too dry to use. **This is not recommended if you have an IG bucket :barf: ** I have no other water source in the shop so I dip my hands in my dip bucket and the moisture reactivates the towel for another use. After used up for the hands I'll use them to clean up oily, greasy tools and tooling. Never tried it but you might be able to put 'em in a zip lock bag to keep 'em moist, I can get 200 or more hand cleaning, not counting tool cleaning out of a 72 count container.

If you use cheap latex gloves and hate how your hands get sweaty and they're hard to get on and off, use a little medicated powder on your hands before putting on the gloves and obviously blow the glove up like a balloon first. Dry hands and easy on / off

I used to use dry film lubricant like (RD-50) when I worked with wood years ago but recently found a can and used it on all my tool tables, fences, guides, bits and blades, works great. non oily or sticky, no silicone, keeps things slick with less friction and cuts down on the rust and doesn't attract dust like a magnet

If you have a horizontal disk taking up space on your work bench, build a plywood box leaving the front and part of the top open. You gained another storage space on top and confined the disk dust inside the box and maybe saved some ivory scales from fying across the room.

I got tired of my safety goggles fogging up so I took one of my old motorcycle helmet fog city fog shields, cut to fit the inside of each goggle lens and securely glued the perimeter of the shield to the lens., no more fogged up goggles.

My well broke in cork belt split at the edge and I'm unable to save it. While waiting to get another cork belt I used a 3M micro finishing film belt and applied the green chrome the same as the cork and it works great! I always use the chromed cork prior to finish hand sanding and blade etch and polish, blends and polishes nice without distortion
 
Loctite sells 222MS Threadlocker designed for low-strength applications i.e., small screws and tiny threads. The nutty part of this is that they put it in the same cheesy bottle as the rest. Smaller parts should warrant a smaller applicator tip, right? Nope. Theirs still gushes out a huge blob if you aren't extremely careful. I use a toothpick to apply the exact amount I want to the threads. Just enough and you have a tight screw. Too much and it'll run into the pivot or elsewhere.

I also use toothpicks for graving off semi-hardened epoxy, or de-grunging small counterbores. You can use them for mixing small amounts of epoxy also.

Oh yeah one last thing... They are also good for that nagging chunk of steak caught between your molars. :D

TOOTHPICKS! :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup:
 
You can find all sorts of nifty tools in the beauty isle.
Make-up sponges: these little wedges are great for getting a smooth, even finish for stains and dyes
Manicure tools: The bamboo sticks can be carved used for all the same uses as toothpicks, and you can carve them down after each use or to get in an odd area. Diamond nail files are often thinner than our needle files, and can be useful for opening up a guard, but they don't have an even grit, so finish with a good file. Nail clippers are nice to have around, and if you keep a good sharp edge on them, they can be even better than tweezers for removing splinters.
And toothpaste on a ceramic rod or stone will sharpen a knife much like a japaneese water stone
 
Pretty cool little gadget I ran into. A mini planer for you drill press. Made for flattening fronts and necks for guitars and the like, but would be more than enough for handle scales me thinks. And darn reasonable all things considered, including replacement blades and comes with a sharpener!

If the only material you ever want to thickness is for scales, this might just be the ticket.

http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Tools/Planes/1/Wagner_Safe-T-Planer/Pictures.html#details
 
The mini planer is pretty cool but I would only use it in a cross slide vise or something to lock it down good. It is a variation of a fly cutter used on milling machines and I don't use them unless the stock is clamped very well.
The picture on the website shows it being used w/o any clamping just a fence. Still it looks like a good idea vs buying a full size planer just for knife scales.
 
Yeah, thats what I was thinking.
For thicknessing or flatening slabs for handles etc. Could be pretty darn handy.
If you try to run you average handle slabs through a full size planer your almost as likely to loose them to snipe as get what you want if your not careful too.
Any way, I thought it was pretty cool.

I agree with you on the safety thing, at least in principle, not the same kind of pressures as with a mill but I sure wouldn't want that thing to grab and toss a slab at my gut. oof!

Jon
 
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