All About Pocket Knives

This is a technical question I have been meaning to ask for quite a while for anyone (Dale please help me) who has had experience in transplanting old shields to newly rehandled knives. So, after I rehandle a vintage knife (I mostly do Case), I haven't figured out to repin the old shield and have the pin heads "disappear" like they do in the factory. The attached pics are my latest failure. I do carve out the inlay and epoxy the shields on first, and then peen the shields on before reassembling the knife. If I file the heads down flush, they seem to pull right through the shield (like the one on the left is starting to do. I haven't been able to find nickel silver rod that is small enough to fit through the tiny holes in the shields and liners, so I use steel brads that are the right diameter. Maybe that is the problem? (The big nick on the shield was already there; I didn't do it.) Any suggestions/recommendations would be greatly appreciated.

I'm certainly not Dale but I think you use jewelers wire. It comes in the right diameter and has some silver content. BTW if you're looking for a tested shield you might check with the guy in KY that I gave you info on some time back. Anxious to see the comments you get from others.

You have to countersink the pin holes so the peened pin has something to grab. Peen the pin so it fills in the countersink, this way you leave a pin head that holds the pin in place once everything's sanded flush.

Eric

I have a couple of old Case shields that still have the pins in them and I measured the pins. One was .050" and one was .054". I also measured some other pins some of them were as small as about .040" and others as large as .060".

Eric is absolutely correct about countersinking the pinholes!

Bob's idea of using jewelers wire also very good. I haven't done that, at least not for shields. I was able to locate some .9 MM pin stock which is just a little over .030", also a bit too small for most shields. That is smaller than most shield pins I have encountered with the possible exception of some very small bar shields. The shield pins do not need to be hardened because they have no real load or pressure on them. The fact that their dead soft will work in your favor peening them.

To help you figure out which size jewelers wire to order, I downloaded this little chart somewhere years ago. I think 16 gauge an 18 gauge wires will be the most helpful ones for pinning shields. Unfortunately they don't come in half sizes, so you may need to sand one down a little bit. The only problem is there so soft they won't stay straight in a drill. I have worked with some of the 14 gauge nickel silver half-hard wire in its very soft compared to what we usually used for pins. The dead-soft wire will be even less rigid, but it should peen very nicely.

Thanks Dale/Eric and Bob. Exactly what I needed to know. I actually tried jeweler's wire before, but mistakenly got the soft stuff. I'm going to look for the "1/2 hard". Bob, I am going to give your friend a call about the shield. Thanks again!

I think the problem I had with the soft stuff before is it was too small and just bent over when I tried to peen it.

Using the right materials is paramount to doing a good job.
http://www.whimsie.com/nickel%20silver%20wire.html

Thanks Bill. Perfect, I just placed an order. Great website.

Thanks Bill and Herbva...useful tips!