soldering vs. jb weld

M

manassas dragon

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Dec 3, 2009
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i don't know squat about soldering. so i am wondering if attaching a brass guard with jb weld is an acceptable substitute. any thoughts? be easy- i'm a beginner.
 
If this is a hidden tang, the main thing to do is make the guard fit very tightly to the tang. You should really have to drive it on with a hammer and jig (though without deforming it in the process). To pull this off, it's important to taper the tang, both sides and edges -- otherwise a slightly wider part further down the tang will mess up your fit.

Given the above, the only thing that solder or glue are doing is sealing the joint against fluids (and maybe providing a bright line for the solder fetishists :)). Glue is fine for that purpose but it doesn't matter if its JB Weld or not.
 
As Dan said.....solder or JB weld is NOT an attachment method...if your thinking along those lines, then your not fitting your guards tightly enough.

I'm not fussing at you, just letting you know that if there are ANY gaps between the blade/tang and the guard, and your thought pattern is that solder or JB weld should be used to fill/hide those gaps...that's not where you should be going. The objective should be to fit a guard so tightly, that it looks as if the blade is growing out of the guard. Again, as Dan said, the only purpose for solder or JB weld should be as a moisture seal, to prevent moisture from infiltrating under the handle material and eventually rotting it from the inside.
 
I personally feel that all guards should be soldered in place and have never sold a blade where the guard was not silver soldered to the blade. In my opinion this is a part of the knife package that adds to the quality of the knife and craftsmanship of the maker.
 
If the blade is just "friction fit" as described, the handle needs to be under compression against the guard. If the handle isn't going to be under compression, then it does need to be soldered. The most common ways off putting the handle under compression are with a threaded nut on the end of the tang (probably the best), a peened tang, or an offset pin.

If the guard isn’t soldered, it’s a good idea to seal it with epoxy, JB weld or something to keep moisture out and prevent "galvanic corrosion" between the non ferrous guard material and the steel blade.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galvanic_corrosion
 
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While it's certainly not the case that I want to countermand the best judgment of my betters -- Ed Fowler, for instance -- and this suggestion does not come from any experience making thousands of strong, utterly reliable hard use custom knives -- I'm going to make a slightly different suggestion...

JB weld is good for a lot of things. Great, even. But it isn't really a structural epoxy; it's great at sticking a lot of things together, filling small cracks, being used on a wide variety of (often poorly prepared) surfaces. But, I don't think that this is something that it's particularly well suited to.

Depending upon the dimensions of the tang you are trying to glue -- and the size of the gap that you are trying to fill -- there's probably a structural epoxy that West Systems makes that's more than capable of holding the thing together under a lifetime of hard use. I hear West Systems structural aerospace epoxies are the gold standard for this sort of stuff. Years ago -- before I heard of West Systems -- a younger me was fond of mounting 6" carbon steel Mora blades in BudK type knuckleduster handles (I used the piece of shit Chinese blades as putty knives) using 3M fiberglass reinforced structural marine epoxy. Really -- if it's good enough for permeantly fixing holes in the hulls of ships -- or moulding aerlons for composite-material kit aircraft -- it's probably up to the task at hand. Just something to keep in mind though -- you're looking for something hard -- but also something flexible -- which won't warp under torsion -- and with a resistance to fatigue...

Just a note -- I could Baton those moras through tree stumps with a claw hammer. The epoxy was necessary for keeping the blade from falling out of the handle. They were no more likely to break at the blade base than anywhere else.
 
I don't disagree at all with you about using good epoxy with hidden tangs. It's just a different subject, the OP was asking about guard fit.
 
To me JB'n a gaurd is harder than soldering one. The fit has to be tighter. That said there's no solder to clean up, no heat or flux discoloration of the blade, and no potential weakness from the heat of soldering. Just takes a little more time on the fit end of things so to speak. And JB will hold a hidden tange gaurd, even though it's mainly for a seal, good luck getting it off without a torch!:D
 
Just a few days ago I was 5 minutes from finishing a hidden tang and screwed it up where the guard and handle meet. I chiseled most of the handle off then cleaned the tang up on my grinder. My thoughts were to hammer off the guard so I wouldn't have to make another one. I gave it several smacks with a 1 lb. ball pein, and it wouldn't budge. Long story short I screwed up the guard too and wound up grinding it off. So do not doubt the strength of a well fitted and JB welded guard.
 
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