Tutorials that got us to this point;

Stock Removal Tutorial: [link]
Heat Treating Tutorial: [link]
Blade Antiquing: [link]



Tutorial 4: Putting a handle on a knife.

Step 1: Prepping the materials.

It's worth noting that once I have the blade finished on a knife I like to wrap it in tape. This keeps epoxy and reduces the chance of me hitting it with a file or whatever. If you do this try to use a tape that doesn't leave a lot of residue afterwards, just to reduce the hassle later.

First thing we need to do is draw the outline of the handle onto the material we are using for the handle. Since my handle material is black, I just used a pencil to roughly outline the handle.

Second I use a hacksaw to cut out the handle material. It is a good idea to get close to the outline, but you don't have to be right on. If you are using screws instead of pins, you can drill your holes and profile the handle around the knife, but since I am using pins and they are sometimes hard to get out when doing that. I like to epoxy my handles to the knife and pin them before profiling.

I leave a good amount of room on the handle material for me to change the angle of the front of the handle material. Most of the time I round it, but some times I make it do different things. When doing that it could alter how your handle material fits, so I usually leave myself a good amount of wiggle room.

The next thing I do is make sure that the front of the handle material matches up. Mine aren't exactly even, so I take a file and match them up. After that I hit it with 60 grit, 120, and 320 grit, because this will be the last time you can really mess with this side of the guard is you are using pins, without the possibility of scratching the blade.

Next I rough up everything like it owes me money. I make sure to do the handle of the knife and the handle material. This allows the epoxy to get a better hold.

There are some people that mirror polish their handles and materials. They say it is better, but me personal, I don't believe that. I was taught to do it this way and to me it makes sense that the scratches on the handle and material help the epoxy get a better grip on both sides.

I don't go over 60 when roughing up the tang and handle materials. You also want both sides to be as flat as possible. A way that helps me do this, is by getting a surface that I know is flat, like marble or something along those lines, and taping my sand paper to it. Then I go over it with the handle material and even the handle. I constantly check the sides with the knife handle to make sure that the two lay flat. Once each side of the handle material is a flush match to the tang of the knife, then its on to the next step of epoxy.



Next Step: [link]




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Logan Pearce
www.pearceknives.com