should i pin a kitchen knife?

[notsobrite]

this is my first try at doing anything with a knife. a co-worker keeps a 10" kitchen knife at the shop that's in bad shape. i brought it home this weekend to fix it up and the first thing i tried to do was take the bend out of the blade- so of course i broke it. so i reground the blade and now i'm ready to epoxy some cherry handles on, but i don't know if i need to pin the handles as well or if the 5 minute epoxy is enough to hold it. any thoughts?

 

[1066vik]

are there any holes in the tang to run a pin through?
if yes, I would pin.
If not, it's likely not worth the effort to drill through the hardened tang.

 

[notsobrite]

are there any holes in the tang to run a pin through?
if yes, I would pin.
If not, it's likely not worth the effort to drill through the hardened tang.

it has 1/8" holes from the original rivets. i'll see if i can find some brass to make pins with. thanks vik

 

[1066vik]

Ace, Lowes, Menards, True Value - all sell 1/8" brass rod fairly cheap. Sad thing is you only need a couple of inches and the smallest they sell is 3' long.
an alternative to brass pins would be bamboo skewers - it'll give you a better bond than brass, but you'll need to soak the ends in epoxy or CA glue to seal them.

 

[gixxer]

definately pin em. Just another suggestion but I would get another epoxy that takes longer to cure. That 5min stuff can be real brittle.

 

[photonjunkie]

+1 on gixxer's advice on epoxy. With epoxies, longer cure times usually equals stronger bonds.