Maybe I got one more knife left in me?

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I did wonder how the wife stayed put while you worked on this, now I know! She didn't!

It's got to be twice as hard making the knife and constantly worrying about where she's at or what she's doing.

Very fine work.
 
I can't see some of the pictures either in the first posts rc. Your "selfie" while brazing came out good though. I like that spring trick for brazing guards.
Glad the neighbor saw your wife and let you know.
 
RC , that was the best tutorial we have ever had in NFW.

Similar to you my hands and back cant take much more than an hour at the bench. I got a Bowie Im trying to finish as a gift and the walnut scales are giving me fits in the detail.
Keep sharing your skill and knowledge my friend, we all apreciate it!
 
rc,

Thank you very much for sharing all this with us. The work looks great. That bit with the spring holding the cross guard in place with the vise is priceless in itself.

Good luck with your wife and I hope all goes well with both projects, the knife and the wife.

-kBob
 
9-13-2015

Scratched the blade REAL Bad today!!! :what:

With a 5/32" Oregon Chain Saw file, and a 6" Triangle file!

Big Mistake #2
I Should have decided to do the file work before I put the dang guard on!! :banghead:


Getting Started:
31 File started.jpg

Halfway Home:
32 file half done.jpg

rc
 
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More:
Not as good at this as I used to be when I could see better!!

Almost done:
33 File Getting there.jpg



Oh Yea!!:
It's scratched for sure now!!! ....... :uhoh:

That Scratch is not gonna rub out!

34 File finished.jpg


rc
 
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9-13-2015

What else I did today????

Cut Hardwood plugs for the lanyard liner holes to keep from dishing them out when flat sanding the excess pins and epoxy off, then buffing out the handle.

Also cut weep hole slots inside the scales (Note Red mark in bottom scale and wood plug next to it.) the weep hole will let trapped air and excess epoxy bleed out through the open lanyard hole when the tang is forced in with epoxy.

(I will Drill out the excess epoxy in the 1/4" lanyard hole after it cures.)

The Fancy lanyard hole liners will only be put in AFTER the handle is sanded and polished to final Fit & finish, and the wood hole plugs taken out.

Minor buffing of the fancy hole liners will bring them up to high polish with no risk to the scale pins dishing out.

35 Scale weep holes & plugs.jpg

Getting close to Gluing the handle up and finish shaping it!
May be tomorrow?

Or maybe not???

rc
 
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So you are not using the holes in the tang as pin holes? Very interesting! They will let glue through and will help the bond.
 
I'm conflicted on that?

The 12 1/8" pins are for sure alignment pins and will be bonded in place when the scales go together.

The 1/4" lanyard pin hole is going to serve as an epoxy & air bleed hole until after the two scales are bonded together.

Normally, I would assemble the scales on the tang and pins with epoxy.
And pin or bolt the scales to the tang.
Then flat sand the pins & bolts down flush with the scales and guard.

Then do final shaping with the guard with drum sanders, sand-paper strip strips, hand sanding, then progressively finer buffing wheels.

This one though???
After I do the Silver inlays in the guard, I can't flat sand the scales to the guard without sanding the Silver inlays off!!!

So, thinking outside the box, I am planning to glue the scales & pins together off the knife.
Then flat sand, fit to the guard, & finish buffing them.

Then fill the hole with epoxy, and force the tang in.

The 'weep holes' will allow excess epoxy & air to bleed out through the unfinished lanyard holes.

After the Epoxy sets, I can drill any excess epoxy out of the lanyard hole and put the fancy liners in.

Or, I could assemble it to the knife with epoxy & tang pins, then try to find a way to flat sand the junk off without ruining the silver inlaid guard???

You see the logic I'm coming from?
I don't think I can do it the normal way because of the silver inlayed guard??

Anyway, epoxied and force fit in the assembled handle, with air bleed hole to let the air escape would give me 100% total epoxy bond.

I don't think it's coming off in 500 years done that way!!


Or, I could pre-drill the two tang holes for 1/8 pins and plug them with wood plugs.
Then re-drill them after the epoxy sets and pin the handle to the tang then??

But, I have plans for that wide expanse of ivory slab with no pins in the middle.
(More old tricks I still may have in the bag of tricks??)

Opinions?
It's not too late to change my assembly plans yet!!

rc
 
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It does seem that without pins in those tang holes the only thing holding it together is epoxy - I would not want to use it much if this was the case.

BUT, this knife doesn't seem for hard use, if any use at all but to prove to you, the old knife maker, that you can do it. I applaud you for that.

I'd put pins in the tang but that's me. You make it your way and I'm sure it will outlast us all. I just worry that if the blade were stuck in something and pulling on the handle was the way to get it loose that it could fail by coming straight out. But again I don't think knife is really meant to be used (could be wrong) and if you leave the tang holes open they will allow a "pin" of sorts of epoxy.

I just have never made a knife where the handle was held on by epoxy only and it makes me nervous. :)
 
I don't get that nervous about epoxy joints.

I do believe when it's done right, and cured, you could drive it in an oak tree with a hammer.

Then pull it back out with a crow bar without the epoxy joint failing.

It's really no different then every screwdriver and hammer in your tool box.
Nothing is holding them on either, except a perfect friction fit.

And it don't get no more perfect then a perfect epoxy joint.

And you are right in that it will never See hard enough use in my lifetime to fail if I glue it on the tang with wallpaper paste.

It's just I can't figure out a better way to do it & pin it on at the same time.

Maybe I'll re-think it and blind pin it inside the scales, leaving the outsides free for what I want to try last?

But that puts me back to not being able to sand & polish it without ruining the guard silver inlay.

I want clean ivory space on the sides of the scales for one last trick I may try.

Hint: Think Scrimshaw Eagle, Banner in it's claws, with 'Liberty & Justice' on the right side, + something that goes with that on the other side!

'Cold dead hands'? NO!
'Don't tread on me'? No!

Matching Eagle with banner in it's claws on the left side with 'Liberty or Death? Maybe?

Pure speculation at this point.
But I want to leave that option open, with no pins in the way.

rc
 
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Maybe I'll re-think it and blind pin it inside the scales, leaving the outsides free for what I want to try last?
Click to expand...

I thought about that too, but have no idea how to do it. If you are confident in the epoxy press fit, I'd go with that.

Wow, your decoration ideas are superb!
 
It's really no different then every screwdriver and hammer in your tool box.
Nothing is holding them on except a perfect friction fit.
Click to expand...

I have had them fail, although I've never had a good one fail.
 
I can assure you, this will be a very good Epoxy Joint!

I have never had an epoxy knife handle joint fail in probably close to 200 I have made.
(Although most were bolted or pinned to the tang.)

Several of my first ones went to Vietnam in 1968 & 69.
One guy won a bronze star using the knife I made him to cut trough 4.2" mortar ammo steel case banding all night while getting over-run.

And it was a taper tang blade I made out of a file, epoxied into a blind hole handle of red Micarta block.

It didn't help the blade edge much, but the epoxy joint didn't fail!!

rc
 
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Folks,

PM the last post # that you see RC's pictures. I can see them all, but they change size with #11.
 
RC, much appreciate the education.
Gonna steal the weep hole idea.
Like Don I alway pin to the tang, couple times when I wanted a clean scale look I used internal tang pins.
What epoxy?
I use Devcon, 2 part, get it at Lowes,
 
Impressive!!

RC--Your skills are immense! As others have said, THANK YOU for sharing your techniques with us--I'm learning too, from your posts here.

That knife is amazing! What are you planning for a sheath?

Anyhow, thx again for sharing.
 
RC cleaned up the photo links...

so if anyone was missing out on some of the pics like I was - be sure to recheck the old posts.

"...One more knife..." Understatements abound.


Todd.
 
I have never had an epoxy knife handle joint fail in probably close to 200 I have made.
Click to expand...

My concerns were because I've never made that type of knife, and you continue to impress and educate me!
 
Didn't get a chance to do much today, except clean up the guard solder joint this afternoon.

So, this evening, I fitted the handle to the guard with Prussian Blue.

http://www.brownells.com/gunsmith-t...otting-compounds/prussian-blue-prod20225.aspx

As it turned out, the guard was soldered on about .001" - .002" out of perfect square with the tang.

(Guess My Old Valve Spring is Sprung?)

So that left a tiny crack on one side of the guard / handle joint.

Can't have that!! :cuss:

So, I fitted the front of the handle to the back of the guard tonight using Prussian Blue inletting black.

The object is, you coat the hard part with Prussian Blue, then fit the loose part to it.

Where the black is on the loose part is tight.
Where it isn't black, is loose.
So you remove the black + a frog hair of handle, and try it again!
And again!!
And again!!!

First fit, note low side (gap) has no black on it:

a35 Prussion Blue.jpg


SO, you take the black off plus just a frog hair of handle!

Last fit. Note pretty even black pattern.
This will give me a hair-line glue joint you can't hardly see when I epoxy the handle on:

I will probably fine tune it a little closer after I get the scales glued together and shaped down.

a36 Prussian Blue.jpg



Next step tomorrow is try to mill the guard on both side's for the Nickel silver inlays, and silver-solder them & the Nickel-Silver wire rings in place.

(Without melting the guard loose from the blade again!!
It's all 430 degree silver-solder from this point on!! :what:

Wish me luck!! )

rc
 
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