Frank Hunter
Well-Known Member
The recent thread on some handle materials wanting to "blow out" during drilling got me thinking about the long, long list of expensive mistakes I've made regarding the fairly simple process of either installing scales or a hidden tang block. Here are some of my best ones, this can be read as a "don't do it this way". Feel free to chime in.
Very early on I worked with a lot of Dymondwood. It's pretty explicit that this material has a grain to it similar to wood, which goes one direction and needs to be laid out lengthwise with the handle. My first project with it that required more than the 1.5" wide scale pair for about $4 was a batch of many knives using 3 or 4 slabs 5" x 10" in size. Easy fifty dollars in materials. I laid out handle scales with a sharpie scribed around my pattern and went to cutting - and I had run each and every 4.5" long scale crosswise on the sheets and only caught it the next day. They're in a bucket at the shop still.
Also, sometime later I began to experiment with heavy skeletonization of my tangs. I typically run a series of large 9/16" holes lengthwise and then adjacent to those run 5/16" and fill in with 3/16" or so, but on one knife I decided that I could squeak some extra 3/16" amidst everything which ended up nearly centered on the tang. I promptly drilled through a burl handle using a hole that was a good half inch off in the spacing and definitely wasn't acceptable - and then did it AGAIN after I busted the original ruined scale off and had it all re-glued with new material. That burl was inexpensive enough but I'd hand selected it, put it through the resaw and had time to and from for stabilizing. I now mark my tang holes for pins with a buzz with the parts scriber.
Recently I had a single scale of a pair of very nice pair of green/blue/cream mammoth ivory scales mitered to fit a double bolstered knife, and was fitting the mate of it to fit the other side of the tang. To do this I typically slide the first, prepared scale out of the miters after I have it perfect and face them together on their flats and use a pencil to give me a very rough "grind to" line, mirroring the size of the finished scale, the miter needs to be individually fit but it helps speed things up especially if one scale is overlong and you'd like to bandsaw it close to start with. I did this, and for whatever reason cut well INSIDE the miter instead of outside it. So that knife had it's ricasso bolsters knocked off (which were already shaped and at 220 grit) and replaced with a set 3/16" longer into the scale region to compensate for my suddenly shorter handle material, which also required shortening and re-mitering the first scale. I figure I managed to get roughly 80 percent of over $300 in mammoth ivory on that particular knife after it was all said and done.
Very early on I worked with a lot of Dymondwood. It's pretty explicit that this material has a grain to it similar to wood, which goes one direction and needs to be laid out lengthwise with the handle. My first project with it that required more than the 1.5" wide scale pair for about $4 was a batch of many knives using 3 or 4 slabs 5" x 10" in size. Easy fifty dollars in materials. I laid out handle scales with a sharpie scribed around my pattern and went to cutting - and I had run each and every 4.5" long scale crosswise on the sheets and only caught it the next day. They're in a bucket at the shop still.
Also, sometime later I began to experiment with heavy skeletonization of my tangs. I typically run a series of large 9/16" holes lengthwise and then adjacent to those run 5/16" and fill in with 3/16" or so, but on one knife I decided that I could squeak some extra 3/16" amidst everything which ended up nearly centered on the tang. I promptly drilled through a burl handle using a hole that was a good half inch off in the spacing and definitely wasn't acceptable - and then did it AGAIN after I busted the original ruined scale off and had it all re-glued with new material. That burl was inexpensive enough but I'd hand selected it, put it through the resaw and had time to and from for stabilizing. I now mark my tang holes for pins with a buzz with the parts scriber.
Recently I had a single scale of a pair of very nice pair of green/blue/cream mammoth ivory scales mitered to fit a double bolstered knife, and was fitting the mate of it to fit the other side of the tang. To do this I typically slide the first, prepared scale out of the miters after I have it perfect and face them together on their flats and use a pencil to give me a very rough "grind to" line, mirroring the size of the finished scale, the miter needs to be individually fit but it helps speed things up especially if one scale is overlong and you'd like to bandsaw it close to start with. I did this, and for whatever reason cut well INSIDE the miter instead of outside it. So that knife had it's ricasso bolsters knocked off (which were already shaped and at 220 grit) and replaced with a set 3/16" longer into the scale region to compensate for my suddenly shorter handle material, which also required shortening and re-mitering the first scale. I figure I managed to get roughly 80 percent of over $300 in mammoth ivory on that particular knife after it was all said and done.
