Fibre glass Resin and hardener to fix scales to full tang blade?

[Handmade Matt]

I have some of this on the shelf.
Or should I go out and buy Araldite Epoxy?

Many thanks.

 

[Mesquite]

Use an epoxy glue

 

[Teepee]

A lot of the fibreglass resin is Polyester. Its good stuff but not as long lasting or as strong as epoxy. When I use it at work, it needs an epoxy primer to stick to wood.

 

[HillBill]

Araldite precision is what i use. It takes 24 hours to cure fully, but it is very, very strong.

 

[Handmade Matt]

Thanks everyone. I think I'll go and buy some Araldite then, so many hours of work deserve it!
I've left some of the features of the file I've used underneath the scales to offer more bonding capability to the glue. Here's it so far:

 

[Handmade Matt]

I've bought some Araldite Precision. It looks good. The brass rod should arrive in the post tomorrow. With a bit of luck everything will be glued and in a clamp before brunch. Then I'll wake up on Wednesday early like a kid at Christmas so I can start sanding and finishing the knife. Happy days.

 

[Ch@rlie]

It's looking good.

I have often wondered about using a file, but thought they would have been too brittle? Or do you need to heat treat / temper them to be usable as a knife?

 

[Handmade Matt]

Yeah that's good thinking Ch@rlie. To work with the file I needed to anneal it (soften) otherwise it would be very difficult to shape. This makes it more flexible but not hard enough to hold an edge, so once I shaped it I needed to harden it again, I made a forge at the end of my garden with bricks and an airbed pump. Once hardened again it would be too brittle for hardcore bushcraft so I annealed the handle and the spine of the blade but not the cutting edge using a blow torch watching that the rainbow heat patterns didn't spread as far as the cutting edge, like this:

 

[Ch@rlie]

Nice pic of work in progress,
Thanks for the details, I may at some point attempt this.