Start the month right with too good and three blems for 10/1

Steve, When the copious amount of laha was removed, there was more than enough tang remaining to re-rivet it back together. Can't say how much laha was used on his khuk, but, like you, I would certainly want to try to save as much of the original work as possible.
 
Steve Tall said:
Not sending an email, just commenting about this one:
12 inch 16 ounce Beautiful Ang Khola by Kumar. The water buffalo bone handle did not like the Nevada dry weather and developed crack. Make your own handle at $65.

That's a nice looking handle. Perhaps it can be saved -- I recall a thread where someone removed the pommel plate and totally filled a horn handle with epoxy, to prevent breakage. (I forget how they managed to get enough tang length to peen the pommel plate back on, maybe by first shortening the handle a little? or welding on an extension? or thinning the plate?)
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If you have a welder you can spot weld it back on and file it or polish it back. If its a brass cap you can even solder it. I spot welded my KLVUK cap back on with a bunch of epoxy underneath. The weld is so fast theres not enough heat do any damage to anything. Soldering would require a powerful gun 50-100 watts and a big fat tip to get the heat to flow quickly.

BigB: Just as a cautionary note or FYI thing. I personally would refrain from using superglue or CA because it breaks down over time if you apply it too thick. I say this because you might repair a customer part and they could be perfectly happy with it but down the road will be different. Looks great when your done for a few weeks or months maybe but in time it will form micro cracks and adhesion properties go to zero. When I say thin I mean less than about 0.30mm. Thats about two sheets of paper thick. Use epoxy for best results. Thats what it is designed for unlike CA. CA requires moisture to cure properly and if you apply it too thick it "skins" over and the underlying CA under the skin cures improperly and eventually fails. You cant see it with the naked eye. Ive done some test to demonstrate this going on a year so far with several popular brands and the results are the same.
Id pump it full of black dyed epoxy, put the cap back on and spot weld or solder it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyanoacrylate
 
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Dog, thanks on the heads up in regards to using CA. In this particular case, none of the cracks jeopardized structural integrity, they were all superficial, hairline or chips still attached. Basically, just surface repairs. By the time I filed off the excess I doubt any were thick enough to cause issue. However, I will keep an eye on it. I agree that epoxy would have been a superior choice. I did not see a way to get something of that viscosity where it needed to be even with a hypodermic.
 
Bigbore577 said:
Dog, thanks on the heads up in regards to using CA. In this particular case, none of the cracks jeopardized structural integrity, they were all superficial, hairline or chips still attached. Basically, just surface repairs. By the time I filed off the excess I doubt any were thick enough to cause issue. However, I will keep an eye on it. I agree that epoxy would have been a superior choice. I did not see a way to get something of that viscosity where it needed to be even with a hypodermic.
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That is one caveat of epoxy. Hard to get into some tight spaces. Ive use hypodermic without the needle in fact I cut the entire end off so its nothing but an open cylinder and that works well. Pull the plunger back and fill from the needle side. Gotta work quick though depending on what your cure time is. I use clear cello or box tape so you can see the glue as it travels through the crack and poke a hole at the end of the crack to let the air out and then you can see the epoxy exit the hole knowing you've got the entire length of the crack. It works well around Khuk butt plates too. You can just tape it all the way around and poke a hole 180 degrees from where you inject. The biggest problem with this method is you have to press down just right to get the syringe barrel to seal at the tape. A little peice of duct tape with a hole in it works great or file the syringe barrel the same shape of the injection site. I hope this makes some sense without pics. One of these days Ill do a video i suppose.
 
Makes perfect sense to me. Thanks for the suggestions, I'm sure I'm not the only one that will find them useful.
 
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