karl...beautiful knife...i always like the knives you post....could you do me a favor...for those of us that don't know anything about take-down knives....can you explain how to take the knife apart and any pro's or con's to take-down construction....i don't know anything about ti and i would appreciate any info.....beautiful knife as usual....ryan
I’ll give it a try!
As a Maker, the take-down assembly allows me FREEDOM! When “things” are all epoxied up and made permanent, I feel like I must perform all of my actions with the utmost care and concern, because, many times, once an action is completed, there’s no turning back.
With this type of assembly, I can assemble and disassemble the knife at will, and work on each component independent of the others.
As you can see from the attached photo, the alignment pins place all of the parts back into EXACLTY the SAME location regardless of the quantity of times the knife is disassembled.
This is crucial for me to be able to hot-blue my blades after the knife is ENTIRELY done, as well as hot-bluing of the other parts when I use mild steel as opposed to stainless.
I have long disliked the use of pins and any kind of bolts. I do not like to compromise the integrity of my handle material in a way that may allow for future cracks, splits, stress points, etc.
If, for instance, you have a handle material prone to movement that is attached with pins or bolts, the hole in the material will/may/might be the first place for a fracture to appear.
This could also allow the penetration of moisture with no way of repair of the resultant damage.
Not good.
With the Take-down assembly, this is not an issue – ever.
When putting the piece away for storage, simply loosen the take-down nut and let the piece move wherever it wants! When you’re ready to use the knife, just tighten ‘er up and off ya’ go!
After every use, disassemble the knife, wipe it down as you would one of your favorite guns, reassemble and you’re protected until the next use.
I also am a firm proponent of full point-to-butt mechanical connection. This assembly connects ALL of the components into one continuous tool.
During my manufacture of the knife, I tighten the pommel nut with VISE GRIPS!! To assure firm location when creating the parts. I do this so as to subject the knife to far more stresses than it will ever receive by its new owner.
I could also re-blue the blade and the parts at a later date if the knife receives a LOT of use by its owner.
In the last year, I made one knife that was NOT a take-down. Regardless of this, I created the knife in EXACTLY the same way – alignment pins, threaded pommel nut, etc. This was for a special faaaaaaaaaaaaaar North expedition and I didn’t want the user to be concerned with the assembly in an Arctic environment. (I do plan on making more of these in the near future.)
Also note, that I will only use stainless fittings for a non-take-down. If there are hot-blued parts, it will be a take-down.
The link will show you the assembly procedure I used on a similar piece.
I’d be happy to elaborate on any of these points if you like.
This is way I build a knife:
http://www.kbaknives.com/knifeconstruction.html (all photos enlarge when clicked)
disassembled:
assembled:
Non-take-down:
