spacer gluing help please

M

mdoyle

Joined
Feb 10, 2006
Messages
1,005
Hi all,
I'm having quite a bit of trouble gluing up spacers for a project I'm working on, and could use some help.
The knife has dovetailed damascus bolsters. Thong tubing is SS w/copper insert. Mosaic pin is SS/copper. I would like to use a stacked spacer of SS/coppper/SS between the dovetailed bolster and the handle material to kinda bring it all together. Problem is I just can't get my spacer stack to hold together. The spacers are dead flat, roughed up @ 50 grit, thoroughly cleaned, and NOT pressed too tightly on assembly. When I unclamp they SEEM to be stuck well but as soon as I start grinding the edges to true up the stack, everything goes to heck. NO, I'm not overheating the stack while grinding, I'm going very slow and light and cooling often.
I've tried my speedbond 325(my first choice), ca glue, jbweld, west epoxy, and would try acraglas if I could find my tub of hardener:( all with the same results. Surprisingly the ca glue held better than the others, but still failed before I could get the angle on the dovetail matched to the spacers.
My next thought was to try etching in acid before fit up.??? Never had any problem w/the speedbond when working with metal to metal before though....
Thoughts? Suggestions?
I really hate to build this knife any other way than the way I WANT. I'm sure you all can understand that.
Thanks in advance,
Matt Doyle
 
is there any way you can pin the spacers together instead of using an adhesive? maybe put in some evenly spaced 1/16" pins an 1/8" in from their finished size.
 
Not the answer man in this case but I'm curious if you couldnt silver solder the ss, copper, ss together then epoxy to handle material before assembly.

Trying to assemble the handle with dovetailed bolsters and a spacer between bolster and handle can be a chore when it comes time to glue up. Tryied it once and decided to scrap the spacers with the intention of being more patient next time and attatching spacer to handle material before final assembly of handle material to tang.

I'm interested in what the PRO's have to say on this subject

-Josh
 
The grinding heat is breaking down your glue. Pinning is a good option.
Soft solder will hold up to heat better than glue, but you can still destroy the bond by overheating. Real silver solder will hold up to grinding well. NOT the 400 degree "silver solder!"
 
It doesn't take much grinding to build up heat on thin metal. You can even break glue down with aggressive filing!
 
Thanks for the help guys. Looks like I will try to solder these together.
I'm still optomistic, but I'm gettin close to sayin forget the spacers!:mad:
Matt
 
Matt I don't think it's the heat but shear force pullin your spacers apart.I CA mine together and shape with a file with the spacers held in a hand vice. Just my .02.
Stan
 
SBuzek said:
Matt I don't think it's the heat but shear force pullin your spacers apart.I CA mine together and shape with a file with the spacers held in a hand vice. Just my .02.
Stan
Click to expand...

I was thinking about that as well. My thoughts were that perhaps it was the vibration (from grinding) that was causing the shear?
Matt
 
Yep I always had the same problem, I quess between the heat and vibration they will come apart. Now I do most of my shaping with a file and finish on the grinder using a hand vise.
Stan
 
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