*Sigh*...they're all against me...

Kalindras

Kalindras

Joined
Aug 24, 1999
Messages
933
The F***-up faeries, that is. They seem to make almost hourly visits to the shop, these days. The latest, and most aggravating, is that I'm working on my wife's damascus and mammoth-ivory piece, and I ran out of epoxy. No problem, I always have extras lying about...except, after setting for four days in 80+ degree temps (normal humidity for Dallas), my epoxy is still gummy in places. I've tried heating it (just made it more gummy), and cooling it (no apparent effect at all).

I have already pitched the epoxy, as it seems to have been bad (it was standard 2-ton, and I mixed up a batch of 3:1 hardener to resin, and after two days, it hadn't hardened yet!!), but I'm left in a quandary: apparently, it set up enough to stick the ivory in place, and I don't think I could get it off without breaking the epoxy. However, from past experience, I know it'll be Hell to drill the holes for the last pins...

HELP!!! Any way to harden epoxy, AFTER application?

Thanks in advance, as always, folks!


------------------
Kalindras,
Washroom Attendant to the Nazgul
and
Holder of the Iron Key to the Men's Room of Mordor...

Madness lives in steel at www.geocities.com/Kalindras/index.html !!
 
Drew...
By no means, do you have the market cornered on the f'n gremlins bud. I'm pretty sure that I've got several living in my outside shop and a couple more down in the basement.
As far as the epoxy goes, if it was me and I didn't peen any pins in place, I'd heat up the epoxy and remove the scales and clean everything up and try again. If your handle pins are peened in place, about the only thing that I can think of would be to VERY CAREFULLY try to drill them out and then do the above. That's the best that I can come up with.
Currently, I'm in the middle of a mosaic piece from hell. I've had to anneal, harden, and temper it two different times (the hardening line stopped about an inch short of the ricasso). Then, if that wasn't enough, I etched it and black laquered it, but didn't etch it deep enough, so when I went to sand off the excess laquer, I ended up with shiny spots where it should be black. Totally unacceptable. Had to grind all the way back down to bare metal, then do all of the hand sanding AGAIN, fix the filework, etc. It's in the etchant right now and I can assure you that the etch will be plenty deep this time, even if I have to etch it all night!!!
Never fear, though. There's better days ahead! Oh, btw, you've got a pretty cool website going!
Best regards from the big sky,
Bob Bizzell
 
Oh. My. God.

Bob, you are obviously a far more patient man than I. About halfway through READING about your tribulations on the mosaic, I was ready to give up!!! Post or send me a pic of that thing, once it gets done, wouldja?!?

Anyway, on other notes, luckily, the scales on this piece are three-parters, so I'm just having to redo one section (over, and over, and over, and...). Still, it's maddening because it's the last bleeding section! I'm SO CLOSE--it's really hard to control myself and take my time. The only thing that's keeping me from rushing is the fact that this is my wife's knife. If I do well on it, I have a lifetime supporter. If I muck it...well, I still have a lifetime supporter, but she lacks a good, beautiful knife. Yesterday, I pried the piece off, cleaned it up, and RE-RE-RE-RE-epoxied it. Crossing fingers and leaving food out for the gremlins, I'll check it this afternoon.

Anyway, despite the problems, occasionally I have some GOOD luck. Another piece actually took a decent solder (for me, this is big news!)! So I'm not quitting. I'll post pics of the progress and finisheds, once I get some new NiMH batteries for the digital camera.

Thanks for the kind words 'bout the site...it's an ongoing project, but it's nice to know folks are looking!

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------------------
Kalindras,
Washroom Attendant to the Nazgul
and
Holder of the Iron Key to the Men's Room of Mordor...

Madness lives in steel at www.geocities.com/Kalindras/index.html !!
 
one thing i have learned the hard way is the last 10% of making a knife takes about 90% of the total time. also yelling at the knife does'nt make it go any faster.LOL

------------------
Laurence Segal www.RHINOKNIVES.com
 
Laurence--

Yeah, I know...here's the proper sequence for mechanical repair we had worked out while I worked as a stage carpenter:

1. Cuss it.
2. Bang it.
3. Bang it again and cuss some more.
4. Keep banging (if it breaks, it was obviously cheap and needed to be replaced, anyway.).
5. Cuss louder.
6. Replace it and burn the original.

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------------------
Kalindras,
Washroom Attendant to the Nazgul
and
Holder of the Iron Key to the Men's Room of Mordor...

Madness lives in steel at www.geocities.com/Kalindras/index.html !!
 
OK...this would be the previously mentioned mosaic from hell. New camera, first time posting a pic, I hope it works!
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Fossil walrus, 1084 & L6.
View

I can't believe that such a simple looking knife could cause me so many problems. BTW, thanks to Bruce Evans for the excellent filework tutorial, even though you can't see the vine on the spine!
Best regards from the Big Sky,
Bob Bizzell



[This message has been edited by patternweld (edited 06-11-2001).]
 
Well, after about 50 tries to get the pic into this thread with no luck, I stumbled onto how to get it to link. Now, could someone please tell me how to make it open in the thread w/o having to click on the link. Thanks in advance. (I guess it's a good thing that I make knives and not web pages!! lol)

[This message has been edited by patternweld (edited 06-10-2001).]
 
Okay, well I'll give it a try...

Hopefully, this is the piece Bob is trying to show us:

View


We'll see if that works!

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Okay, cool--Bob, apparently, the link you were using on your post's image was wrong. I just grabbed the corrected URL from your mail, and slapped it into the same HTML that you used. Are you cutting/pasting your URLs, or are you hand-typing them? That might be part of it...otherwise, maybe it's just bleeding bad luck. Great looking piece, though!

------------------
Kalindras,
Washroom Attendant to the Nazgul
and
Holder of the Iron Key to the Men's Room of Mordor...

Madness lives in steel at www.geocities.com/Kalindras/index.html !!

[This message has been edited by Kalindras (edited 06-12-2001).]
 
Thanks Drew!
I had a couple numbers transposed...I think that I might be a little bit lysdexic sometimes. At any rate, it's good to know that it was a stupid mistake and not those f'n gremlins taking up residence in my computer.
biggrin.gif

Bob
 
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