Nightmare or Victory????

[ringergary]

Hi all, Was doing this one up. It was a Victorinox, one blade, one thingy looked like bottle opener was broke.
Aluminium handles, which were corroded pretty bad.
Started with one blade, backspring. Built the liners out of brass flat, the handles are Tasmanian Eucalyptus.
The hardest part was making the little block to replace the bottle opener blade.
My pin peening has improved, but still need more practice, I think I hit too hard, used to peening copper rivets on leather.
I finished the handles with 1200 paper but I can't get a shine on it, any suggestions.
Made a couple of mistakes, I originally put home made bone handles but these cracked for some reason, probably
peened to tight .
I don't know if the pic's are in any order, my filing system isn't crash hot.
Anyhow have a look and tell where or what I've done wrong.
1st pic is brass liners and backspring,blade.
2nd pic is with the bone handles that are no more.

cheers Gary.

Same old story,,,forgot to take pic's of original knife before pulling it apart..

[ringergary]

found pic of knife pulled apart,,,



cheers Gary

[knives-are-quiet]

The knife looks good to me.
It's a shame those bone handles broke.
You need to make sure the bone is completely flat on the sides that will be attached to the liners. With bone I like to use pins that are slightly smaller in diameter than the hole drilled in the scales. You also need to be more gentle when hammering with bone than other materials.
Bone looks great but now a days I am more into wood handles. You drop a bone handled knife it breaks. You drop a wood handled one it only gets dinged up or scratched which can be sanded out. If you plan on using a knife you re-due than wood handles are your best bet.
Wood is much more forgiving than most other material used.
Your knife looks great.
You might want to reshape that blade a little and give it a point.

J W

[Joe Dirt]

Excellent job, Gary!

Where can I get some of that Tasmanian Eucalyptus .....

Try some 3M Micron paper to finish sanding the scales. The stuff is amazing.
Give "Singin" a shout, and he'll get you on the right track with it!

..... Joe

[ringergary]

Hi all, Thanks for the feedback fella's,

JW.. I reckon it was peened too tight, was only using a shoeing hammer but my 6oz peener turned up in the mail today.
See if that makes any difference??
I keep telling myself, self this is only the 2nd knife you've worked on so you must get better, ya can't get any worse, haha.

Yeh, that tipped blade, was gonna do something with that, decided to put knife together and do some practice
and reading on blade reconstruction before I tried that.
That's next on my learning curve.
Thanks for your reply.


Joe,,, I did the finish with 1200 paper and then 4xO steel wool, but didn't seem to put a gloss on it,
will give singin a PM later to get some inside info, if he don't mind.

I went back thru my list of sellers and you can get that Tassie Eucalypt from " brixy1971 ", if he's got any.
Would send you some but only had the 1 peice.

thanks for the info,,,

cheers Gary

[glennbad]

Nice work Gary, I would definitely call it a victory. The bone? Well, that happens. Here is a pic of a SCC barlow that I was redoing. I had a nice pair of worn bone scales that I was going to re-use. Well, this is what happens when you peen too hard...



It was very much a let down for me, but I was able to use the other pair, and learned something from it.

Keep up the good work!

Glenn

[knives-are-quiet]

Hi all, Thanks for the feedback fella's,

JW.. I reckon it was peened too tight, was only using a shoeing hammer but my 6oz peener turned up in the mail today.
See if that makes any difference??
I keep telling myself, self this is only the 2nd knife you've worked on so you must get better, ya can't get any worse, haha.

Yeh, that tipped blade, was gonna do something with that, decided to put knife together and do some practice
and reading on blade reconstruction before I tried that.
That's next on my learning curve.
Thanks for your reply.


Joe,,, I did the finish with 1200 paper and then 4xO steel wool, but didn't seem to put a gloss on it,
will give singin a PM later to get some inside info, if he don't mind.

I went back thru my list of sellers and you can get that Tassie Eucalypt from " brixy1971 ", if he's got any.
Would send you some but only had the 1 peice.

thanks for the info,,,

cheers Gary

A 6 oz hammer is good but a 4 oz is better and safer when working with brittle material.
Practice, practice, practice is the key when hammering and after you do it enough you will get the feel for it. I used to practice on sea shells. I'd drill holes in them and peen scrap pin stock to them. When you can do it without cracking the shell you should be able to pin anything. Most of the time now I use a tack hammer for peening.
Also new bone is less brittle and not dried out like old bone is.

J W

[Elvis]

Sometimes you can take those old bone handles off without any pressure on them at all and hold them up to a light afterwards and see cracks that weren't visible when they were still on the knife. The odds are kind of stacked against you on those right off the bat. It's a crap-shoot we take whenever we try to reuse old handle material. Until there is a guaranteed way to win that battle, I'll just keep checking ebay for that crystal ball we'd all like to have.

[knives-are-quiet]

Sometimes you can take those old bone handles off without any pressure on them at all and hold them up to a light afterwards and see cracks that weren't visible when they were still on the knife. The odds are kind of stacked against you on those right off the bat. It's a crap-shoot we take whenever we try to reuse old handle material. Until there is a guaranteed way to win that battle, I'll just keep checking ebay for that crystal ball we'd all like to have.

You are absolutely right Elvis.
I have had old bone handles break with the first tap.
I suggest being prepared with another set of bone handles or ones made of an alternative
material on hand ready when dealing with old bone.
And even if you are successful getting the old handles on, they are still old.
I usually stabilize the bone with a polymer sealant.
It makes the bone real shiny but helps by putting a hard coating on them.
Just be careful using a vintage knife with bone handles and try not to drop it.

J W