When do you drill your pin holes?

Wade Jones

Wade Jones

Joined
Nov 1, 2009
Messages
183
I have David Boye's book, and in it he says to drill the rivet holes after HT and tempering.
Seems like it would be easier to do before heat treating while the steel is softer.
Am I missing something here?
 
I would never heat treat than drill holes do yourself a favour and drill the holes first.

Bob
 
Agreed. Drill your holes before heat treat. In fact drill them right after profiling and before any bevel grinding. Easier to keep them square that way.

Rob!
 
Before both heat treating and tapering of the tang. The drill works best on a level surface.

I do drill holes after forging on A2 sometimes using carbide tile cutter bits in the drill press. Usually I drill first then round the holes back out after forging. Even with a stress relief heat the A2 is way hard and it takes way too long to spheroidize.

With regular Carbon steel, you can soften it up w/o too much trouble, so then drilling is not to hard after forging.

I always do the pin holes before final heat treatment on all steels.
 
I mark up the flat bar and drill holes after i have formed the shaped the whole knife.
I also counter sink all the drill holes to take off the burrs and prevent stress risers that can form during heat treating.
 
It seemed odd to me, but then I thought maybe there was a good reason for it. :)

Thanks guys!
-W
 
One thing I have come across is occasionally, I will grind, H.T., and polish a whole blade, then start into building the guard, since I like a very close solder joint... since the blade is already polished, I drill the pin holes through the guard stock, then cut out and bring the guard slot up to the right width by filing to fit. Since I want the pin holes to match exactly, I wait to drill them into the blade until after I have the guard friction fitted up to where I want it. I then use the guard in postion by drilling through the existing holes in the guard to mark the blade, then taking the guard off and finishing the holes. Since most of my blades get fully quenched, then soft-back drawn with a torch (including the ricasso and tang), and since I use cobalt bits, I can get away with drilling through the blade there if I am careful, peck with the bit, and keep it cool. Of course, this mostly just works with simple carbon steels. As for the handle rivets, I almost always drill them first, whether or not I have forged or purely removed stock.
 
I sometimes quench just the blade, which leaves the tang soft with my 1080, and then drill. The steel comes annealed but is actually softer this way. Most of the time I drill first though, and would recommend doing it that way.
 
Correct me if I'm wrong, but, in Boye's book, wasn't he using saw blade steel? If so, then drilling after tempering would be preferable to drilling in the hardened state in which the blade started. I don't have Boye's book anymore, so I could be way off base.
-Mark
 
That's a good book and the one the got me started in the early 80s'. And yes, he was using saw blade steel. If I remember right, David Boye was hardening his blades with a torch and not hardening the tangs, so it wouldn't matter much when holes were drilled.
 
You're right, he doesn't ever mention annealing or normalizing the steel before working it. He must of went through a lot of belts.

He does seem to be using a kiln to heat up the blades for HT though.
 
He does seem to be using a kiln to heat up the blades for HT though.
Click to expand...

Yeah, now that you mention it, I remember him using a kiln, and if he was doing an edge quench, that would leave the tang in a good state for drilling holes. I do beleve I read or saw somewhere, him also using a torch for HTing???
 
I just looked at the book again, and he HTs and tempers the whole blade, then goes back through with a torch and anneals the spine and handle areas.
 
Wade, now I remember where the torch comes in. He cuts the blade blank out with a cutting torch. See, my mind still works, a little :cool:

I made many knives from saw blade steel, pretty much the same way but used an acetylene torch to heat for quenching.
 
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