Saving an oldie.........

[knife7knut]

Awhile back I posted some pictures of a 35 pattern Camillus trapper whose yellow celluloid handles had deteriorated to the extent that not only were the blades corroded but the brass liners had rotted though;forming a crack radiating from the spring rivet nearly through to the other side.

Having stripped away the offending scales back then,the knife sat around on my computer desk almost as a mental reminder to check my celluloid handled knives on a regular basis.

I had cleaned up the blades and liners as well as I could;leaving the rivets in place.Today I decided to see if I could do something to at least make it into a user.

Out in the shop I searched around for some suitable handle material.I passed on some plexiglass sheet as being too brittle for scales.It is difficult to drill without shattering and cracks readily if stressed too much.I had some smoke gray Lexan but didn't like the look of it.I finally came across a chunk of red oak that was a remnant of some cabinet trimming.The red oak has a pretty wide open grain which I thought would look pretty good.Didn't realize how good it would look.

I rough cut the pieces to length and centering them over the rivets,clamped them into my vise driving the rivets into the wood.Unfortunately I had a gap near the bolsters on either side but as it wasn't a show piece decided to leave them as is.Bear in mind my total time to make these was less than a half hour.

With the scales in place I scribed a line around where they met the bolsters and liners,removed them and proceeded to sand them down on my belt sander which has a 1"x30" belt and a 6" disc. Did most of the sanding on the disc and when I got close to the liners switched over to the belt. Did some finish sanding with 150 and 220 grit paper,applied JB Weld to the liners and clamped them down. After drying,finish sanded with 220 wet or dry paper and polished with Mother's Mag Wheel Polish.

The rag I was using to polish with was pretty well dirtied up from prior polishing and the black worked itself into the grain of the wood making it almost look like stag!

Anyway I now have a nice little EDC that otherwise would have eventually got thrown out.Here are some before and after pics. Not the greatest job in the world but I still have a couple more to practice on.

[jonet143]

atta boy, 7k7. saved one.

[Ringmaster]

A hearty pat on the back, K7K... you done a good deed today ! And a good job, as well.

Kudos,
JR

[Cope]

Good Job!! Looks Good!

Brad

[griz1200]

Good lookin knife you got there K7K. Nice job!!

Greg

[muskrat man]

nice save K7K

[OLDSMOKE]

Man that is really nice you did a fabulous job, I have a few old ulsters here that you could kill some time on for me.

Rusty

[johnnierotten]

Great job!!

[knife7knut]

After doing the Camillus,I decided to make a back handle of the same material for a Robeson swing guard that had succumbed to celluloid deterioration.For some reason only the back handle was affected.The front handle is yellow celluloid and after seeing the way the handle came out,I'm tempted to replace the other as well and try to inlet the shield.

This one came out a little better but still has a small gap where the bolster and handle meet.On this one I drilled the rivet holes out.As there is no rear bolster,it made fitting the handle a bit easier.

So here it is.

[knife7knut]

Having carried my restoration project for a couple weeks now,I decided to try to upgrade it a bit by doing some self-inflicted jigging.This was done using a small Dremel-like tool with a teardrop shaped bit.There was no pattern marked on and the knife was held in my hand.I started at one end and worked across the handle impressing about 4-5 grooves in a row;moving down and staggering the next row and so forth until I reached the end of the handle.Repeated on the other side.

A couple of hints:if you are attempting this,try and keep the angle of the tool in relation to the surface(in this case,about 30 degrees from horizontal and parallel to the axis of the knife)fairly constant and do not make the cuts absolutely symmetrical.Vary the depth and the spacing a bit to give it an authentic look.Also try to keep a firm grasp of the tool so it doesn't wander over the surface;especially onto the bolsters or backspring.Saves re-polishing later.

After cutting,I took a cotton sock(pre-used to polish other knives)and with some Mother's Mag Wheel Polish,proceeded to polish the handles;allowing some of the blackened polish to sink into the wood.Finish polish with a clean sock and there you have it:ALMOST JIGGED BONE!

[OLDSMOKE]

Very nicely done Man!!! You cant get much more coustom than that, I would carry it !!
Rusty