All About Pocket Knives

I was trying to filework the spine of the ecolite and when I pushed out the pins the paperstone scales just came apart in chunks, I was pretty pissed, but then I thought, hmm, bamboo might work as a nice replacement for the paperstone and still keep with the eco/green theme.
Here is the finished knife with new carbonized bamboo scales:

Great save Snorkel! Looks good!

Never thought about using bamboo before. Good idea and very nice looking too! I can tell you from experience that bamboo is a lot tougher than most folks think. Thanks for sharing it with us!

Snorkel,
You don't happen to have a pic of those broken paperstone scales..?
I'm curious about that material.
I guess you are not that impressed..?

Great idea with the bamboo replacement!

It seemed pretty fragile to me, the pins just have spun heads and I ground them off and then used a punch to push them through and on the other side as the pin came through large chunks came off and big cracks developed. Also because all the pins are just spun instead of peened, the whole knife has a loose feel to it and the blade has some up and down movement, after I fixed this one with peened pins, it's much much better than the way it came from the factory.

The paperstone really is just paper pulp mixed with some type of resin or glue, it very much resembles particle board. It seems to have good compression strength, but is very brittle.

I don't have pictures right now, but if I find the time I will post some.

The bamboo is much nicer than the paperstone and just as light weight and just as eco friendly.

Later,

Snorkel

Thanks for the info!
Paperstone is, as far as I know, a quite new product. I don't think we will save the planet by using recyckled handle material for knives, but the idea is interesting and the thought behind it is a good one. Brittle is not good, though! I wonder how durable it is...

Again, I liked the bamboo!

The bamboo is nice example of thinking outside the box!
I like it.

snorkel wrote: Also because all the pins are just spun instead of peened, the whole knife has a loose feel to it and the blade has some up and down movement, after I fixed this one with peened pins, it's much much better than the way it came from the factory.

I may have to get one of the paperstone knives to play with.
It sounds to me more like a failure of the handle material, perhaps breaking down around the pin head. If the handle material is solid, spun pins should hold the handle just as tight as peened pins, provided they are spun down properly.
It has been my experience that if I leave the pins too long, the knife may be loose, but if the pins are the proper length, the knife will be as tight as if the pins are peened.
Pin length is critical in spinning a head. It is perhaps less critical in peening, but still very important.

Dale

Nice work and cool thinking snorkel.

orvet wrote:The bamboo is nice example of thinking outside the box!
I like it.

If the handle material is solid, spun pins should hold the handle just as tight as peened pins, provided they are spun down properly.
It has been my experience that if I leave the pins too long, the knife may be loose, but if the pins are the proper length, the knife will be as tight as if the pins are peened.
Pin length is critical in spinning a head. It is perhaps less critical in peening, but still very important.

Dale

Thanks Dale

This was the only paperstone one I attempted to take apart, I may try again and see if I can get it apart without damage.
If it cracks again, will just make more bamboo scales I actually really liked working with the bamboo, it's harder than maple and works like butter on the belt sander and it has a super tight grain that finishes nicely.

I have taken apart several new brass and NS buck 110s and they all had a slight loose feel to them because of the spun pins, after I rescaled them and used peened pins the whole knife felt better and the blade actually locked up tighter because the slight play in the spine pivot pin had been removed.