How To Tapered tang scale pin drilling?

[NailcreekWI]

I'm planning on a few tapered tang knives and am curious as to how pins get drilled to 90 degrees to the knife center line. What's your favorite technique?

 

[Karl B. Andersen]

First is to drill the tang holes before you taper the tang.
Then I taper the scale the same degree. When put together - they're in the zone.

 

[navman]

1. Drill holes before tapering the tang.
2. taper the tang
3. Apply a couple drops of super glue to one side and temporarily attach the scale
I use shims (scrap g10 liner material .015-.040 thick) to shim the butt end of knife when drilling holes in scales.
- I have also used a homemade jig with adjustable "feet" that support the scale material, but the shims work better.
4. Do the same for the other side.
5. gently remove scales and proceed to finish a bad ass knife.

 

[Thescrawnylumberjack]

Using a jig that holds the blank to the scale and I drill each scale separately. This gets a little more complicated when doing segmented scales. With segmented scales I need for align the scales. Place the blank on both scales and then drill holes for locating pins. Then using the locating pins I drill each scale separately.

I should be getting to hole drilling in a few days and can post photos.

 

[Jason Fry]

Shim up the butt end of the scale by roughly the amount you ground off the tang. Drill it. I usually use a piece of G10 liner and call it "close enough."

 

[Jesse Latham]

I have a piece of 3/8 x 1.5 x 10" steel with a slot down the center. I clamp the blank and one scale under it with feeler gauges to space the blank down to square it. I rest the steel on 123 blocks to drill. Fiddly I know, but the pins fit every time.