Off-Topic Strength requirements of pins

emoney2277

emoney2277

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Do pins need to be strong, or are they purely decorative? If they need to be strong, how strong? Ive seen mostly wood, metal, and micarta pins. Would fiber optic rods make good pins? Thought it might look pretty cool if nothing else.
Anyone want to chime in?
 
So the epoxy provides the bond and the pins are more decorative? That's what I take from this.
 
The pins act as a mechanical fastener, a way to align the scales, and are decorative. At least that's the way I understand it. Maybe one of the guys from the shop will chime in soon.
 
So perhaps fiber optic rods, like the ones used on pistol sights, could work? I think that would be pretty sweet! I think one would need to put some sort of epoxy over them because of their lack of durability, I'm not sure if that would limit how much light they would gather.
 
emoney2277 said:
So perhaps fiber optic rods, like the ones used on pistol sights, could work? I think that would be pretty sweet! I think one would need to put some sort of epoxy over them because of their lack of durability, I'm not sure if that would limit how much light they would gather.
Click to expand...

I think that would be pretty cool as well! Carbon fiber scales with fiber optic pins? :thumbsup: Sounds like something @Osprey Knife & Tool would dream up!
 
This is just my thoughts... Pins became well established in knife making years ago when adhesives were not very good and folks sought mechanical fasteners to hold things together. As we had advances in chemistry and began to better understand polymers and polymerization, we were able to craft better and better resins and catalysts. We figured out how to add UV inhibiters, temperature stabilizers, and gosh knows what else to make the plastic do what we wanted. However, we still cling to the pins. I suspect it's for a few reasons. (1) it makes alignment and assembly much easier and (2) we often don't clean and prepare the surfaces like we should and thus the miracle epoxy never has a chance to grip with it's 4000 pounds per square inch power. So we add a 1/8" rod in the there with say a half inch of length and then we get an additional 785 pounds (3.1415*.125*.5*4000) of epoxy holding strength per pin. Since we never touch the inside of the holes, and the drill leaves a rough surface, we get an easy way to increase the handle bonding strength. (3) it's visually pleasing.

Here's some West g-flex numbers:
http://www.westsystem.com/specialty-epoxies/gflex-epoxy-adhesion-data/
 
swonut said:
This is just my thoughts... Pins became well established in knife making years ago when adhesives were not very good and folks sought mechanical fasteners to hold things together. As we had advances in chemistry and began to better understand polymers and polymerization, we were able to craft better and better resins and catalysts. We figured out how to add UV inhibiters, temperature stabilizers, and gosh knows what else to make the plastic do what we wanted. However, we still cling to the pins. I suspect it's for a few reasons. (1) it makes alignment and assembly much easier and (2) we often don't clean and prepare the surfaces like we should and thus the miracle epoxy never has a chance to grip with it's 4000 pounds per square inch power. So we add a 1/8" rod in the there with say a half inch of length and then we get an additional 785 pounds (3.1415*.125*.5*4000) of epoxy holding strength per pin. Since we never touch the inside of the holes, and the drill leaves a rough surface, we get an easy way to increase the handle bonding strength. (3) it's visually pleasing.

Here's some West g-flex numbers:
http://www.westsystem.com/specialty-epoxies/gflex-epoxy-adhesion-data/
Click to expand...

OK, that's impressive. I would never have guessed the handle adhesion to be so strong.

Cool info!
 
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