What to do with this Western fixed blade?

[BenG76]

Curious on how this knife could best be made usable again. I picked it up quite a while back with plans to do something with it eventually. The handle part has been ground on some and I think some of it may be missing. This is a bigger knife than I typically go for but it is a pretty nice blade. Well at least it could be again with some work.

I am just looking for some opinions. To be honest I am not sure it would be a job for me yet as I don't have all the tools and experience needed.

[FRJ]

Ben, welcome to the forum.
That knife looks like it has possibilities. Is the pommel end cut off?
Some one around here should be able to make it right. Maybe ............

Got any other knives?

[BenG76]

Ben, welcome to the forum.
That knife looks like it has possibilities. Is the pommel end cut off?
Some one around here should be able to make it right. Maybe ............

Got any other knives?

It looks like the pommel end was ground on so it may have been cut off. I am not sure what these typically look like on the inside.

[FRJ]

I'm not familiar with them either without the handle.
TripleF (Scott) was rebuilding one a while back.
He might chime in.

[knives-are-quiet]

Your best bet would be to put scales of your choice on right and left sides.
Holes could be drilled for pins or you could try lots of epoxy and clamping.
Of course the easies thing to do to get her usable again would be to wrap paracord around the handle area and use her as a Bushcraft knife.

JW~

[knives-are-quiet]

Your knife probably originally had a stacked leather handle.
It is missing the guard and butt of the handle.
The small hole was where a pin held everything together.

Something like these knives.

"Handle more like bottom picture"

JW~

[Joe Dirt]

Welcome to the forum, Ben!

That knife has what is called a "bifricated" tang and was made that way from the factory.
Like others have said, it probably was stacked leather.

A site search of "bifricated" may turn up some info on the knife...

Joe

[Joe Dirt]

Try this link:

http://www.allaboutpocketknives.com/kni ... bifricated

Joe

[jerryd6818]

Welcome to AAPK. Glad to have you aboard. The old Westerns are well worth the effort to get them on the road again. They're good knives, not high value but good users.

There's a fella that sells repair kits on eBay for the Westerns with the bifurcated tangs. He sells just the leather washers or just the spacers or the pommel.

This is what he currently has up for sale. http://www.ebay.com/sch/sharpshootershe ... 7675.l2562

[BenG76]

Welcome to AAPK. Glad to have you aboard. The old Westerns are well worth the effort to get them on the road again. They're good knives, not high value but good users.

There's a fella that sells repair kits on eBay for the Westerns with the bifurcated tangs. He sells just the leather washers or just the spacers or the pommel.

This is what he currently has up for sale. http://www.ebay.com/sch/sharpshootershe ... 7675.l2562

Thanks for the info. I will message them to see if the kit they have will work for this knife.

[orvet]

Jerry beat me to it.
You can use those from ebay to complete it.
I am not sure the tang has been shortened.
Is there a model number on the tang?

If you can find a model number we can probably find a picture of what the knife looked like originally.
Of course with a blank blade you can always be creative and make a customized knife.

It is a nice looking blade and Western's carbon steel was second to none, which is one of the reasons they are still so popular with hunters and outdoorsman.

[glennbad]

Usually those bifurcated tang knives had a hole for each side to attach the pommel to. The holes on the OP knife look different. I guess it wouldn't matter if there was enough handle to work with though.

You could do a slab style bowie mod on it, that would look cool!

Looks like a fun project either way...

[BenG76]

After looking at the tang on the back I believe it is a L46-8. Its hard to make out all of the numbers on the knife. I did a Google search using Western 46 and the model I mentioned came up. It looks like the kit sold on Ebay may work. I may purchase it and some of the colored pieces as well.

Can anyone link me up to a video or tutorial on redoing a stacked leather handle? Thanks for the help guys

[BenG76]

Also one other issue I have is that I don't have the original guard. May need some ideas of how thick of material I need for it and where I could find a small piece of brass to make it with. I don't have anything lying around that I think would work.

[orvet]

I don't have a L-46, but I do have a couple L-36 Westerns.
1/8" brass looks like it would be fine judging from my knives.
You can probably find a bar of 1/8" brass at your local hardwaree store.
In my area I can find brass at Tru-Value Hardware as well as Ace Hardware.
A 12" X 1/8" bar shouldn't be much more than about $5.

[Dinadan]

Curious on how this knife could best be made usable again. I picked it up quite a while back with plans to do something with it eventually. The handle part has been ground on some and I think some of it may be missing. This is a bigger knife than I typically go for but it is a pretty nice blade. Well at least it could be again with some work.

I am just looking for some opinions. To be honest I am not sure it would be a job for me yet as I don't have all the tools and experience needed.

If I were doing it my first thought would be to make it a coffin handle bowie. That way no pommel would be needed, just a filler strip between the handle slabs at the end. You would need a guard of some kind.

[knives-are-quiet]

Can anyone link me up to a video or tutorial on redoing a stacked leather handle? Thanks for the help guys[/quote]

This link will kinda' give you an idea of how it's done.

JW~

https://www.brisa.fi/portal/index.php?o ... &Itemid=15

[BenG76]

Welcome to AAPK. Glad to have you aboard. The old Westerns are well worth the effort to get them on the road again. They're good knives, not high value but good users.

There's a fella that sells repair kits on eBay for the Westerns with the bifurcated tangs. He sells just the leather washers or just the spacers or the pommel.

This is what he currently has up for sale. http://www.ebay.com/sch/sharpshootershe ... 7675.l2562

I got the repair kit with the pommel plus I got some of the spacers as well. I ordered blue and white spacers as I wanted to be a bit different. Hopefully the kit will arrive soon. I will keep everyone updated. I may add a video for YouTube as well if I feel up to it.

One thing worth noting here is I noticed that the handle part had been ground by someone along the edges as well. I saw a blade similar to mine with no handle on Ebay completed listings. It seemed to have more of a bulge on the sides of the handle. Mine are ground nearly flat or straight. This may make mine have a thinner or straighter handle with less of a bulge than an original. I will see if it is something I can live with. If not I may try to figure something else out.

[Joe Dirt]

A YouTube video would be GREAT, Ben! We certainly don't have enough videos on repairing knives -
especially leather handled fixed blades! Sounds like a fun project!

Joe

[FRJ]

One thing worth noting here is I noticed that the handle part had been ground by someone along the edges as well. I saw a blade similar to mine with no handle on Ebay completed listings. It seemed to have more of a bulge on the sides of the handle. Mine are ground nearly flat or straight. This may make mine have a thinner or straighter handle with less of a bulge than an original. I will see if it is something I can live with. If not I may try to figure something else out.[/quote]

Some one may have ground the bifurcated frame thinner to accommodate a slab handle on each side.
Inletting the frame in the slabs and not showing the frame. Just a thought. Too bad they were ground.
I hope this is a success for you. Go for it.

[BenG76]

Just a small update. I ordered the pieces of leather, spacers and pommel from the link earlier in this thread. Its been 11 days and I have got no reply at all from the seller. I sent a message to let them know what color spacers I wanted. Also mentioned that they had not set up there listings to combine shipping so I overpaid for that by several dollars and was hoping to get that refunded or something. Also they have never marked the item shipped or anything. I am beginning to wonder if I will get these. I will do another update when I find out.

[orvet]

Thanks for the update.
I can’t wait to see how you do with it.
Please keep a photo journal of the process and show us how you do it.
That may help someone else avoid a mistake or two.

[BenG76]

Well I never got the kit from Ebay to repair the knife. So I am back to square one. I am tempted to make the leather pieces myself as I recently got into leather working a bit. I may think on this one a while. I will update when I get around to working on this one.

[muskrat man]

Well I never got the kit from Ebay to repair the knife. So I am back to square one. I am tempted to make the leather pieces myself as I recently got into leather working a bit. I may think on this one a while. I will update when I get around to working on this one.

make your own washers from scraps, it's cheaper and more fun. wet and compress them, that way to reduce shrinkage later on and the handle becomes loose. it also helps to apply contact cement to each washer as you assemble it to keep it nice and solid. you can never over do a leather handle. they are awesome when done properly but are one of the most difficult to do properly.

[TripleF]

Just so ya know.....I'm not dissing ya Jow (FRJ) but I ended up bailing on the project.....I'm just not talented enough or have anough focus to complete a project like that.

But I'll be hoping this fellow completes his!