A couple of questions on knife making.

[Zammo]

I have a few questions that hopefully people on here can answer:

1. I am going to make a full tang knife but I have noticed the tang around the handle of the knife I have is black and also a little rugged. As this is going to be visible when the knife is complete I want it to look as shiny and nicely finished as the rest of the knife, but how do I go about doing this?

2. I realise I have to drill the wooden scales to make way for the rivets and then glue this onto the knife and put the rivets through the knife and wooden scale holes, but how do you secure the rivets in place? Do you let the glue hold them in place and cut them so thay are flush with the wooden scales, or do you need to hammer them down?

Thanks.

 

[Shinken]

Firstly you can clean up the tang edges with a block and some sandpaper, a small sanding drum placed in a drill or drill press would be extremely helpful!

As for the pins you can use glue to hold them in place, or you can counter sink the holes and with a ball pein hammer, hammer the ends into the counter sank hole. You will need to cut your pins a mm or two bigger at each end. For this i suggest you drill some holes in a scrap piece of wood first and countersink them and practice several times with some more of the same rod you intend to use as there is a certain knack to this. A anvil will be helpful for this if not a solid steel plate will work

 

[Bardster]

As you shape your scales to the knife once they are glued on you are also going to be sanding metal. it will end up shiney. If its really bad and rough you can always file/sand it down first.
The rivets/pins will be held in place by the glue, no need to hammer them down. Again they will be sanded flush with the scales as you do final shaping and finishing.

 

[Gossman Knives]

I epoxy one scale at a time. Rough shape it around the tang with a sanding drum on a Dremel tool. Drill the tang holes and attach the other side. Repeat the second side as i did the first. With wood scales, I peen the pins with a ball peen hammer on an anvil. Then grind them off while shaping the handle on the belt grinder. I go around the tang on the belt grinder smoothing out the scale/tang junction.
Scott

 

[C_Claycomb]

Think pins rather than rivets. They are only rivets if you peen the endes. If you do a very flat sided handle, you can counter sink the pin holes, or make them very slightly tapered, then peen the ends of the pins, before the glue has set, to fill the space. However, if you are going to shape the handle, particularly rounding it, you will tend to file/grind away the portion of the pin that you peened.

For your first go I really wouldn't bother with peening. It is just another thing to worry about, and if you do a good glue job you won't notice the difference.

Speaking of glue jobs, be sure to de-grease the surfaces of the tang and slabs with acetone just before applying the adhesive.

Be sure you have the right size drill bit for making your holes. It can be a nightmare getting 1/8th rod into 1/8th holes when everything is covered in glue be sure to drill so you have a little clearance, 0.1mm is usually enough.

As for the tang, I would go about smoothing that before fitting the wood. I have seen some tangs that needed a fair bit of clean up and you don't want to be driving that much metal dust into your handle material if you can help it. Just use 120g and 240grit wet and dry with a hard backing (strip of metal or wood). If there are any curved areas, use a round backing bar for the paper. The paper lasts longer if you sand in line with the tang, rather than accross it.

Good luck

 

[Zammo]

I don't have any power tools that can help me for this job, so i'm literally going to be using just a few files, rasps and sandpaper. Should I bite the bullet and buy a dremel, or just give it a go?

I'm a little confused as to whats actually involved with peening. With this would you counter sink the holes and then hammer the edges of the pins flat into the holes?

 

[Shinken]

'm a little confused as to whats actually involved with peening. With this would you counter sink the holes and then hammer the edges of the pins flat into the holes?

Yep!

But things can go wrong!

 

[C_Claycomb]

I wouldn't really recommend a Dremel if this is all you will be doing. They can be useful for some jobs, but not really anything that can't be done (in this case) with hand tools and patience.

I used to have a B&D Wizard tool, until the gears died. I then bought a pendulum drill rotary tool from Axminster (190W motor and a flexible shaft with detatchable had pieces) which is a lot more bulky than a dremel, at least 50% more power, better speed control, and has the ability to take 6mm shank drum sanders. Its a great tool , but at about £85 it's more than you need do do one knife.

Get some dowls in different diameters to use as backing for sandpaper and you will be fine.

If you have a round needle file you can use it to taper the pin holes ever-so-slightly. The gradual taper gives the pin somewhere to expand when it is hit (peened) but you aren't as likely to grind it away when shaping the handle, as you can with the countersinks. Too much counter sink and you can be tempted to over peen the pin, then the pin mushrooms, work hardens, splits, and fails to fill the countersink