Majorly frustrating problem with bolsters!!!

Lerch

Well-Known Member
Hi guys,

well for the 4th knife in a row that i have been trying them on i am unable to pin brass or nickel silver bolsters to my blade. I know this is something i am going to feel like a complete idiot for not being able to do and i am embarasssed to ask but i am out of options. This is the process i have been going through to try to attach them

drill holes for pins (usually 1/8") then HT blade
finish knife and get ready to do handles
the area that the bolster is going on i rough up with a 60 grit belt, there are also usually 1/4" weight reduction holes drilled through here
on the bolsters i tap some small holes on the bottom to allow something for the epoxy to grip, i also rough up with some 60grit
mix epoxy and glue one side on, hold down with clamps
i will wait until the next day so the epoxy is set up correctly and then drill the holes through, starting 1 or 2 drill sizes smaller and working my way up to the final size (usually 1/8")
now at this point several of the bolsters have come off but not most
I will then glue the other side and and once set up overnight i will drill it out, again here i have lost several sides while drilling even though i go as slow as my drill can go (around 300rpm) and i have used rem oil to try to reduce heat build up. and i drill smaller pilot holes and step my way up to the correct size bit to reduce pressure.

if everything has held then i will try to drive my pins through. i cut them and rough them up with a 60grit belt and i taper one side that i will be driving through, then coat with epoxy and slowly use a small hammer to drive them through. well i have never made it past this point, everything at least by now has broken off.

Tonight i was trying a brass bolster, the hole i drilled should have given around .001-.002" clearance for the pins , they started fine but once i got to hammering them through the other side pop!! the bolster snapped off!! If i wasnt already going bald i would rip all my hair out i swear, its driving me crazy!!!!

if any one could help me i would love it, im at my wits end! oh and im using Devcon 2ton epoxy

thanks
steve
 
Steve, Let me run ya through how I would attach them.. Mind you this is only one way, Not necessarily the best way.. But So far my % of completed bolsters is a bit higher then yours.. :)

As far as your prepping the blade.. and drilling your holes B4 HT etc seems about right.

first.. I take my bolster material and cut them oversized but close in shape. Then super glue one side onto the tang as close as possible to where you want the finished bolsters to rest. You dont need alot of super glue here. just a few drops.. Apply the bolster and clamp for about 5 minutes.. Now with a sharp or even better a NEW drill bit. drill your holes to the same size as your tang holes.. If your at 1/8 I would not drill pilot holes, I would just straight away drill the 1/8 inch holes. You can dip in water between holes to keep the heat down. So drill your holes, I recommend 3 pins for most bolsters.

OK so you got the holes drilled, through one side.. Now rap the lip of the bolster hanging over the top or bottom of the tang with a hammer to remove. and repeat on the other side.. Drilling the bolster and knocking it back off the tang.

take your pin stock and sand to fit into the 1/8 inch hole, You will have to sand your pins if you are using same size pin as drill bit.. The pins should easily go through the holes. not have to be forced. Next I run at least 2 pins through the bolsters and shape the fronts of the bolsters.. Separate them and now pin temp. pin them to the knife.. Now I sand and shape the top and bottoms to the tang. rounding and contouring after I profile to the blade tang.

Remove the bolsters from the knife and pin them to themselves again.. And shape the backs to match each other. Then rework the fronts to whatever finish level you intend to do to the bolsters.. Because once they are attached, its impossible to sand the fronts properly.. So get the fronts to final finish now.

Finally, its time to attach them to the knife permanently. Re clean the tang and surfaces of the bolsters.. If you have a reamer.. Ream the holes on the face of the bolsters.. If you dont have a reamer.. You can use the 1/8 inch drill bit and rock the bolsters slightly opening up the top or face just a little. Be careful here, As if it grabs, or should I say when it grabs its gona start spinning and can cut your hand.. I wear gloves for this part. What your trying to do is open up the top of the hole, giving your pin a place to expand to, which secures them to the blade.

Get you pins ready. they should slide into the holes easily, but not super sloppy.. You should not need to force them.. They should slide in easy..
Anyways.. Go ahead and glue the bolster using epoxy or JB weld.. Whatever.. (on a side note) A little glue goes a long way here.. as your gona cinch up the bolsters and to much can make a mess really fast.

Now run your pins through. Make your pins where they are about 1/8 inch longer then you need. I often sand the pins down after installing them leaving about 1/16" on each side. you dont want to much hanging out or it will fight up when you start penning them. Now. its time to Peen the pins. you will need a hard flat surface to use as your anvil. and a hammer.. start slow on one side.. getting the pins to start to mushroom just a little. now flip it over and repeat. continue flipping and hammering till the pins have expanded and cinched the bolsters to the tang completely. Basically beat the snot out of them but try not to hit the bolsters to much when your doing this,,

Thats it, Your bolsters are attached, Clean up excess glue and Sand the pins and bolsters and finish out the knife.. ..

Nothing to it but to do it!! Having a drill press is VERY helpful doing this with a hand drill is a pain, yet can be done. Hope this helps..

Let us know how it goes.

God Bless YA
Randy
 
Randy
What taper and size reamer are you using for 1/8 pin stock?
I've also found it helps to start the mushroom head on one side before putting my pins in for the last time.

Thanks and God Bless
Mike
 
I do it totally different than you do. I clamp an oversized piece to the blade and drill the holes. I then take the second piece and clamp it to the first drilled bolster. I use 3/32 pins and after both sets are drilled, cut my pins material. I drill with a 40 drill bit. I then put pins in both bolsters and put the blade on top, with the pins through the holes in the blade. I mark the curviture of the front of the bolster and grind to shape I need. I square the back or mating surface of bolster to handle material. I take the front of bolster up to 1000 grit and buff. I have the surface of blade at 1000 grit. I take bolster to flat and sand the mating area of bolster and knife to 1000 grit. The drilling of bolsters will punch out a little mound that needs to be removed. I take a tapered 3/32 reamer and ream from the outside surface to blade area.
I take the pins and point them a little bit and clean with acetone. I put everything together and use needle nosed grips to clamp everthing together and straight. I do have a pin press and mushroom the end pins but you can hammer them the same way. I do not use any epoxy but have wicked some super glue to the edges if it is going to be a hard use but most times don't.
I ,after pins are mushroomed, take it to a block and give each pin a solid smack to flattn.
The needle nosed grips insure that the bolster do not move while you are mushrooming the pins. I have basically a solid piece of steel at this point.

I will add when you use the tapered reamer, you are actually sucking that bolster dwon on the side of the blade, making an even better joint.
 
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Hello and good day. My current method to attach bolsters is quite a bit different. I was generalizing, amusing that Lerch didnt have alot of specialty tools, reamer, or a pin vise or even a anvil. etc, etc... lol When I was first starting out, I didnt have any of these things. It was "fake it till ya make it!"

Good luck Lerch. let us know what you come up with.

God Bless
Randy
 
okay, well both sound good, i will have to try something along those lines. i was under the impression that the pins had to fit extreemely tight, i guess i wasnt aware of the peening swelling the pins and making the fit tighter. this has been driving me insane so far!!!! lol

thanks
steve
 
Look in the tutorials, Marvin Winn (maxcutter) did a real good tutorial on bolsters. hope this helps.
 
Thanks guys,

I tried a little combo of both your methods tonight and God willing the sides dont fall off i think it worked !!!! lol both sides are epoxied on with 3 pins hammered through and peened in. I am gonna let it set overnight do the iron wood handles tomorrow if everything is good, thanks again!!!



I will check out that tutorial Mr. Coffee, i looked over the tutorial section but i must not have seen it , thanks

steve
 
GREAT!!! :D

Glad to hear it worked out for ya!! That tutorial by Marvin is worth looking for.. I also seem to remeber one from Art Summers that was very informative as well.

God Bless YA
Randy
 
Everything I hear sounds good. Only one thing, in 12 years of screwing around with knives there is only one thing I am absolutely sure of......STOP using Devcon, it is the worst epoxy I have ever used not only in knifemaking but in any making! It may actually mix and cure (sometimes) but it will NOT last. Good luck, good skill, hope it all works out for ya!
 
I know a maker who lives near a river in south/central florida. He had made for his son a knife with wooden scales. In the aftermath of a hurricane/tropical (can't remember which) storm the river he lives near rose so swiftly he did not have time to get everything out his shop. His shop was flooded and the knife was lost somewhere in that shop.

The knife was under water in his shop for several weeks while the river flooded. When the river finally receded the knife was found. It had been under water for over a month plus, and was still in a slurry of wet debris when it was found while cleaning up the floor of his shop. After drying out, the handle was still as solid as can be.

He will also tell you about the time he put a wooden handle on a knife and the client decided that he wanted scales from horn. He tried to heat the wooden scales to get them off to no avail. He will describe to you how he had to beat them off of the handle, piece by piece as they would not let go intact, even with the shear force factor, they came apart in little pieces. He has been doing this full time since the early seventies and before, so I have to respect his advice and in fact I have because I use Devcon.

I will tell you this about Devcon, and, some of this info is from the makers advice I just referenced and some is my own personal experience. If the tube it has been sitting around for more than thirty days opened I won't use it on a knife. I will get a fresh tube. I drill holes through out the handle area allowing for glue to flow from side to side. I will also drill dimples in to back side of the scales I am using. Be careful no to go to deep and be sure to place them so that they do not become exposed when grinding the handle down to shape. I use pins to help with the sheer strength factor and create small pocket/dimples on the backside of the scales at the pin area thus increasing the holding power of the pin itself. I always clean the handle with acetone and re-clean the backside of the scales and the handle of the knife with alcohol as a final prep before gluing and use also use gloves to keep any hand oils off of the surface I might accidentally get on them while doing the glue up process. Don't skimp on the epoxy. I try to use enough that if flows out of the handle. I always have rags and acetone handy to get off the access. Now you can't get sloppy with the acetone as it will cut the ability of the epoxy to bond if you get a lot into the glued area. Look at it this way if you get the majority of the overflow off especially around the ricasso area,(which should be prefinished so as to not damage the blade itself), the rest will be take off when you do a final sanding of the handle after assembly! One thing when I do my handle glue up, it is done all at one time, including the pins. The pins are left long and they are fitted only to the scales, as I described earlier I enlarge the hole through the metal of the handle to allow for the epoxy to flow from side to side, thus creating a bond from side to side in the pin area!

Now this may go against everything others are telling you. So you then will have to make your own decision on whether to use it or not! Just my two cents on the Devcon glue thing. In my opinion the problems folks are having with Devcon can all be traced back to the problems I covered in the paragraph before this one! Like I said the maker I was talking about has been using since the seventies and Ihave been using it for two years and neither of us has had a failure yet!
 
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well Custance what you are saying would echo some of the things i have seen from Devcon. there have been a few scales i have broken off from the tang of some knives and afterwards i was able to chip and break chunks of the Devcon epoxy away. I am trying Acra Glass gel right now on a build i am doing. so far i am pretty happy with it, i am unable to chip away at any of the over flow i have seen so far.
 
Hello and good day. My current method to attach bolsters is quite a bit different. I was generalizing, amusing that Lerch didnt have alot of specialty tools, reamer, or a pin vise or even a anvil. etc, etc... lol When I was first starting out, I didnt have any of these things. It was "fake it till ya make it!"

Good luck Lerch. let us know what you come up with.

God Bless
Randy

Randy,
Now I'm NO expert on bolsters, haven't gotten into them yet myself, but I remember a Maker at Blade telling me that he would take a 1" wood bit and basically counter bore the hole a little bit, with just the very tip of the bit, that is supposed to leave a "well" for the pin stock top expand into, now I don't know any of this from experience. Just something I filed away for later use and actually remembered it, I was hoping to see if anyone else does it this way, I think it's also supposed to help the pin blend in with the bolster, to make it invisible. Please correct me if you have had different experiences, Thanks, Rex
 
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