Replacing Bone Handles

[cghbuilder86]

Hello everybody! As you can see I just joined this forum. If I'm not posting this kind of question in the right place just tell me.
I make custom handmade guitars by hand. Lately I've wanting to try my hand at some pocket knife restoration and repair. If there is anywhere I can read up on some basic information about knife repair or can some of you experienced once just give me some info. I probably have most of the general tools being a guitarmaker. Bandsaws, scroll saw, belt/disk sander, buffers/polishers, mini routers and grinders. Anyway if there are any essential specialized tools for knives I love to hear about them and maybe even get to see a pic or something. My first project I guess will be trying to replace the bone handles on a knife. Will the whole knife need to come apart for this? Will the pins say in place if a new bone cover is drilled out and pressed over them or will the pins need to come completely out? As you can tell I haven't ever taken a knife apart yet and have a ton to learn, but I think if I can understand the basic idea of how it will be done I'll be okay maybe.
Any info appreciated.
Thanks,
Colby

[orvet]

Welcome to AAPK Colby.
I moved your post to the Knife Repair and Restoration Forum.
That's the place where a lot of us knife mechanics hang out.

I recommend you start by reading the tutorials and many of the threads in general in this forum. They will give you ideas about repairing knives. I would also recommend that before you replace the handles on a good knife that you visit your local flea market, secondhand store, junk shop, thrift store or somewhere else to find an inexpensive but decent quality old knife. That way you can practice on an old knife without ruining a good one. Not to say you will ruining it, but that is a risk, especially on the first repair.

It is possible to replace the handles on a slip joint without taking the knife apart. You will however need a cutler's stiddy, or steady rest, to peen the handle pins. You will need to cut the rocker pin and replace it when you put a new handles in place.

I think there is a tutorial that explains part of this process.

I'm sure someone else will be along shortly and answer any questions I didn't.

Welcome aboard,
Dale

[Darksev]

Sounds like you have all the tools you could need for what we do. Actually, you have more tools than me, so I'm jealous ;P. Y'all are seriously making me want to buy a new house so I can have a shop instead of the kitchen table

Anywho, as Dale said, you don't have to disassemble to rehandle a knife. You can strip the handles from the existing one, and replace without ever touching a pin, if you so desire. Until I was familar with it, I did most of my first knives pinless (modern adhesives are more than adequate for handle scales really). Here's a quicky diagram for you:



This would be as if you were looking at the knife from the side. liner is in "brass" color, handle is red, pins, for illustration are blue. the pin on the left is what you will mostly see from the factory. they use automated hammers to flatten the ends of the pin into the liner and the scale, making it like a rivet. this is ideally what you replicate when re-pinning a knife, but unless you've got lotsa money, you use a ball peen hammer to flatten out the ends.

On the right, is a pin that can be put in without disassembly. it's not going to be a structural element, but if you want that "pinned" look, this will do it without special tools or disassembly. the green areas would be whatever adhesive your using. It will both hold the scale in place, and the pin as well.

One thing I will warn you of. this is EXTREMELY addictive, and most likely the only people who can truely appreciate how much work goes into these things will be fellow addicts Make sure you share with us!

[Diligence]

Just to add to what Darksev said, you can also replace the pin handles without using the adhesive....but you have to make the scales thin enough to all you to slip the pins in from the inside of the knife..

...okay - this won't be clear, but after you have taken a few apart, you will get what I mean.

The result will be a knife that looks like it came from the factory, with the little peened end on the inside of the knife, and the regular finish on the outside. I've done this successfully on a couple of knives that just needed a minor repair, and not a complete overhall.

D

[cghbuilder86]

Thanks for all the replies guys! It helps a lot. I am much clearer on it now. I hope I get to try working on some cheapo's soon