Working on my first knife kit, questions on scale thickness and pins

G

GrizzlyBear

Joined
Dec 5, 2009
Messages
1,528
Hello all.

I'm working on my first knife kit from Texas Knife using a 6a SS blade and red/black dymondwood scales with stainless pins.

I have the scales glued and shaped to the edge of the tang and my holes drilled for the pins and I'm about to start roughing down the thickness of the scales. I have a couple questions at this point.

Should I go ahead and install the pins and glue them up now before scale thickness removal begins, or would it be better to add them a bit later?

and

What is a good average thickness for handle scales? The slabs I got from Texas Knife are pretty thick and I think instead of sanding the first bit of that thickness off, I could run them through the bandsaw to remove a couple layers. Is this a good idea? The scales are red and black layered diamond wood.

Thanks in advance for all the help.
 
Typical scales start at 3/8 inch, you sand down from there. I go as thin as 1/4 if I am not sanding down to far and the blade is thick maybe 1/4.

I peen my pins so I get the thickenss to very close to final finish before I countersink and put the pins in. I know others do not peen their pins and depend on the glue to hold everything.

I typically glue it up and put in the pins and peen the pins to hold the handles in place and apply the clamping pressure needed. This way I know they will never come loose.
 
thank you very much for the replies. i looked through my hundreds of pictures i have saved from across the internet and found a knife that has a similar style as mine. I like the thickness the maker used. The flat of the scales on each side of the tang are about 1/4" then it rounds out as part of the handle design. Looks like i'll be heading to the bandsaw to get rid of some of the extra thickness since i'm only working with a dremel, hand sandpaper and a drill with a disc attachment.
 
Well, I wanted to wait till I got closer to final thickness and when I went to drill out the hole, I had a small chip out in one of the holes! Next time, Ill glue them up from the get-go so if it chips out I can sand it down, now, I dunno if I can sand enough to go past the chip out and get down to smooth wood without going too far.

Can the chip out be fixed, say with filling it with superglue and sanded down some?
 
1/4 ARE JUST FINE . They are ment to be a little thick so the layers show off when sanded down. I use 3/8 and the more you sand the better they look. to finish a little wax and shoe shine buff for 5 min or 10 min or a buffer for 1 min
 
well, this is my first one and my first time using dymondwood, i'm in the finishing sanding stages and there are some things I picked up along the way for sure...gluing the pins earlier in the shaping for one! :) I wanted to go with a red/black/red but since that chip out ruined the red i sanded through it and worked with black from the center out. I actually like it better. I'll post pictures when I'm all said and done.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top