I started with a two blade Camco #551 Barlow.
This is the knife I started with. The blade is full enough to be useful, about 3/32” to 1/8” short. It has pitting on the steel bolsters and to the blades.
This is taking the knife apart by grinding the head off the center pin, punching out the pin and cutting the pivot pin and tail pin with a razor blade. Sorry no pics of the cutting process.
Here are the parts I will use to reassemble the knife, the two liners with bolsters attached, the master blade and the spring. These parts are then cleaned up on a Scotch Brite wheel on a buffer; some are hand sanded if needed. The parts will cleaned up to where I can reassemble them without trying to clean them after instillation.
Here are the cleaned parts (minus the blade) ready to have the stag handles installed. The outside of the liner is roughed up with the 24-grit wheel on the Foredom handpiece. The back side of the stag is roughed up with a 36-grit belt on my 4 X 36” belt sander. The two surfaces to which the glue is applied is cleaned with 99% pure isopropyl alcohol to remove any oil or other substance that might prevent a good bond.
Equal amounts of the 2-part epoxy are measured out for the glue-up.
I usually put electrical tape on the back of the liner to prevent glue from going through the liner and gluing the clamps to the work.
After the glue has set I remove the clamps and haft the stag to fit the bolsters. In this picture the handles have been hafted, sanded and polished; ready for the pin holes to be drilled, pins installed and the knife reassembled. I put my initials on the pile side liner with the year I worked on the knife. I also etch my name on the blade of knives I have customized. That way they can never be sold as a factory “custom” knife.
I really got into what I was doing at this point and forgot to take any more pictures.
Here is the finished knife. There are more pictures of it in my store.
The stag on this is some I experimented with, dying it with a combination of colors of leather dye. Unless I find my notes, I don’t know what color combinations I used. I was pleased with the results of the dying process. It resulted in different colors on each side of the knife. That is one of the dangers of working with natural materials like stag, they are not all of consistent porosity, and so the results are different.
I hope this was informative.
