opaul
Well-Known Member
I finally got around to completing the hidden tang blade I started a couple of months ago. I may have gotten to second base on this one, definitely not a home run. But I'll post up some pictures and then provide my commentary and would love to have your feed back. So here goes.
I used silicon bronze for the bolster backed by a red liner. I used a nickel silver pin, but it should have been bronze. When I drilled the pin hole I accidently used the next size up from 1/8 and the only thing I had to fit was the silver. I just recently purchased a file guide and I don't think I would try to build one with out this aide. It went together well, but if you look at the first photo, the tang is not robust enough. My next one will be wider and more robust.
I didn't have any long drill bits so I drilled what I could and burned the rest of the tang in. I don't want to do that again, it's smoky and stinky and my wife ran me out of the house when I came in from the shop. Next time I will need to be sure I have the handle drawn out so I can center the pin in the handle. This one is a little low. Also the fit of the blade through the bolster was not hatband tight. I'll get some better files and will do a better job next time based on what I learned about doing this one.
As in my nature, I got in a hurry and started sanding and shaping the handle. I should have waited for epoxy to set up. Maybe next time I'll use a faster epoxy. The epoxy ran onto the front of the bolster and it was a bear trying to clean that up. It also got on the blade intersection of the bolster and it too was not an easy clean up.
On the positive side, I like the shape and I like the red liner with the bronze. I like using Wenge and I think that is a good wood for this type blade.
Anyway it was a lot different than I had imagined and I learned quite a bit. I like this blade shape so I'll be using it again but with a more robust tang.
So weigh in please
I used silicon bronze for the bolster backed by a red liner. I used a nickel silver pin, but it should have been bronze. When I drilled the pin hole I accidently used the next size up from 1/8 and the only thing I had to fit was the silver. I just recently purchased a file guide and I don't think I would try to build one with out this aide. It went together well, but if you look at the first photo, the tang is not robust enough. My next one will be wider and more robust.
I didn't have any long drill bits so I drilled what I could and burned the rest of the tang in. I don't want to do that again, it's smoky and stinky and my wife ran me out of the house when I came in from the shop. Next time I will need to be sure I have the handle drawn out so I can center the pin in the handle. This one is a little low. Also the fit of the blade through the bolster was not hatband tight. I'll get some better files and will do a better job next time based on what I learned about doing this one.
As in my nature, I got in a hurry and started sanding and shaping the handle. I should have waited for epoxy to set up. Maybe next time I'll use a faster epoxy. The epoxy ran onto the front of the bolster and it was a bear trying to clean that up. It also got on the blade intersection of the bolster and it too was not an easy clean up.
On the positive side, I like the shape and I like the red liner with the bronze. I like using Wenge and I think that is a good wood for this type blade.
Anyway it was a lot different than I had imagined and I learned quite a bit. I like this blade shape so I'll be using it again but with a more robust tang.
So weigh in please