Bruce McLeish
Well-Known Member
I wonder if some sort of mechanical fastener (rivet, wire post, etc. ) would work in that situation?
How in the world?
- Thread starter KentuckyFisherman
- Start date
TimGinMN
Well-Known Member
Thank your for explaining that Ed. I had not really considered it before and since I've only been doing this a year or so, most of my knives haven't seen a full year of seasonal changes and have been indoors most of that time. I'll be keeping an eye on them.
John Wilson
Well-Known Member
It would definitely help. But it may just crack if it couldn't move. Good question. I recall a few years ago Ed had a story about using ram's horn or something and it actually bent the knife. (I may be remembering wrong. Ed?
Bruce McLeish
Well-Known Member
What about a "decorative" floating bow tie? Allows movements due to normal humidity changes ?
KentuckyFisherman
Well-Known Member
Man, that's a real knockout!
EdCaffreyMS
"The Montana Bladesmith"
Yep! you remember correctly! I put Dall sheep horn on a 11" spear point blade for a gentleman who worked at a wildlife area in southern Florida.... the knife's use was killing gators by the man sneaking up behind them, and shoving it in the back of their heads.
Anyway.... I had boiled and flatten horn to get pieces large enough of the handle scales.... and applied them with Acraglas and loveless bolts. The knife came back to me from what the client called, "the handle scales are peeling"..... more accurately, the ram horn was seeking to return to it's original shape....and the rear of both scales had not only "peeled".... they had curled, and pull the loveless bolt heads THROUGH the horn! So yep..... when I talk about horn...just being compressed hair, and that when using it for knife handle material ..... it can do anything that might happen when you wife or girlfriend is having "a bad hair day"..... I'm not exaggerating in the least.
And what happened with the knife? I took off the sheep horn, replaced it with black canvas micarta, the I textured, and refunded $250 to the client because I couldn't give him the "sheep horn" scales he wanted. But...having integrity to do that sort of thing does not go unnoticed! He has since placed several more orders, and has sent a significant number of new clients my way. So really, it was two lessons. 1. Horn handle material is simply horrible for any type of using knife. Use it for such, and it's very likely you will see that knife again, along with a complaint.
2. Admitting I made a mistake using that material for that type of knife, and taking care of a client ,comes back many times over!
KentuckyFisherman
Well-Known Member
I understand that some critters have horn (modified hair), while others have antlers, which I think is true bone, right? I assume that while antler can also shrink, expand or twist, it's generally more stable than horn, would that be correct, Ed? And then bone/ivory is different still, right? As much as makers here like to use natural materials, it'd be great if someone could write up a good tutorial, including a few cautionary stories like Ed's.Yep! you remember correctly! I put Dall sheep horn on a 11" spear point blade for a gentleman who worked at a wildlife area in southern Florida.... the knife's use was killing gators by the man sneaking up behind them, and shoving it in the back of their heads.
Anyway.... I had boiled and flatten horn to get pieces large enough of the handle scales.... and applied them with Acraglas and loveless bolts. The knife came back to me from what the client called, "the handle scales are peeling"..... more accurately, the ram horn was seeking to return to it's original shape....and the rear of both scales had not only "peeled".... they had curled, and pull the loveless bolt heads THROUGH the horn! So yep..... when I talk about horn...just being compressed hair, and that when using it for knife handle material ..... it can do anything that might happen when you wife or girlfriend is having "a bad hair day"..... I'm not exaggerating in the least.
And what happened with the knife? I took off the sheep horn, replaced it with black canvas micarta, the I textured, and refunded $250 to the client because I couldn't give him the "sheep horn" scales he wanted. But...having integrity to do that sort of thing does not go unnoticed! He has since placed several more orders, and has sent a significant number of new clients my way. So really, it was two lessons. 1. Horn handle material is simply horrible for any type of using knife. Use it for such, and it's very likely you will see that knife again, along with a complaint.
2. Admitting I made a mistake using that material for that type of knife, and taking care of a client ,comes back many times over!
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John Wilson
Well-Known Member
Everything natural moves. Everything. Stabilizing helps (some materials / woods more than others) but it doesn't make the material completely inert.
What I have learned from combining different materials is to pay attention to the grain structure. This is true whether you're making a knife handle or a wooden boat. Any material that has linear grain moves along the grain, and swells against the grain. Combine your materials so that the grain of the two materials is oriented along the same lines if possible. If you're using burls, then all bets are off because the grain is just a confused knot. But luckily those twisted grains won't create a bunch of force in any one direction, either.
A good way to see this in your head is to realize that wood is actually a a bundle of straws. These straws are the capillaries and that's how the tree moves water from the roots. As the tree makes a new ring (the new ring is a new ring of straws) and the old straws get dryer and become the heart wood. Why this matters is because when you cut a block of wood you have a block that is made up like a laminate of what used to be successive rings. This grain... these straws... are laying in sheets and those sheets may not all be the same density or thickness. If they begin to absorb moisture from the air, or water from being soaked, those straws are going to rehydrate to some degree. The straws get fatter and maybe a tiny bit longer. The wood grows and swells, and it will do it at a rate proportional to the size and direction of those straws.
This is one reason that it's a big no-no to use end-grain as your handle. It's very tempting, because end grain is gorgeous. All of those straws are pointing out at the air trying to drink it up, and as they expand/contract they will want to separate from each other. That's why end grain cracks and checks so badly. An end grain knife scale will very often crack over time. You want the end grain pointing out the front and butt ends, because then the straws are laying side by side over much more length and will flex together rather than try to split apart as much. The pin holes will also be between the length of the grain, rather than through the end grain which already wants to separate.
Natural material moves. Don't fight it, accept it. Account for it. Don't make your pin holes super tight. Don't use wood before it's had time to dry out. Be aware that if you make knives in the Florida swamps in your 100 degree, 99% humidity shop where the air drips down the concrete walls in wet droplets like a place where they torture people in the movies, and then ship the knife to Arizona- the handle is going to dry out and shrink and the tang will become a tiny bit proud of the handle. Since you can't go to Arizona to make the knife, allow for a week or three of keeping the finished knife in the house in the air conditioning before shipping it. When the tang finally gets proud you can take it down flush and complete the oil finish on the handle, and the next time it leaves the air conditioning it better be in a box headed to the post office.
What I have learned from combining different materials is to pay attention to the grain structure. This is true whether you're making a knife handle or a wooden boat. Any material that has linear grain moves along the grain, and swells against the grain. Combine your materials so that the grain of the two materials is oriented along the same lines if possible. If you're using burls, then all bets are off because the grain is just a confused knot. But luckily those twisted grains won't create a bunch of force in any one direction, either.
A good way to see this in your head is to realize that wood is actually a a bundle of straws. These straws are the capillaries and that's how the tree moves water from the roots. As the tree makes a new ring (the new ring is a new ring of straws) and the old straws get dryer and become the heart wood. Why this matters is because when you cut a block of wood you have a block that is made up like a laminate of what used to be successive rings. This grain... these straws... are laying in sheets and those sheets may not all be the same density or thickness. If they begin to absorb moisture from the air, or water from being soaked, those straws are going to rehydrate to some degree. The straws get fatter and maybe a tiny bit longer. The wood grows and swells, and it will do it at a rate proportional to the size and direction of those straws.
This is one reason that it's a big no-no to use end-grain as your handle. It's very tempting, because end grain is gorgeous. All of those straws are pointing out at the air trying to drink it up, and as they expand/contract they will want to separate from each other. That's why end grain cracks and checks so badly. An end grain knife scale will very often crack over time. You want the end grain pointing out the front and butt ends, because then the straws are laying side by side over much more length and will flex together rather than try to split apart as much. The pin holes will also be between the length of the grain, rather than through the end grain which already wants to separate.
Natural material moves. Don't fight it, accept it. Account for it. Don't make your pin holes super tight. Don't use wood before it's had time to dry out. Be aware that if you make knives in the Florida swamps in your 100 degree, 99% humidity shop where the air drips down the concrete walls in wet droplets like a place where they torture people in the movies, and then ship the knife to Arizona- the handle is going to dry out and shrink and the tang will become a tiny bit proud of the handle. Since you can't go to Arizona to make the knife, allow for a week or three of keeping the finished knife in the house in the air conditioning before shipping it. When the tang finally gets proud you can take it down flush and complete the oil finish on the handle, and the next time it leaves the air conditioning it better be in a box headed to the post office.
EdCaffreyMS
"The Montana Bladesmith"
And skies open, and the Angels sing!!! ABSOLUTELY!! I cannot count how many times I get help requests for handles that have "moved"....and when I try to tell them that very thing...I'm told flat out "You're wrong! It can't move! It's stabilized!" Grrrr! The Knuckleheads.
I think that most every thing moves, maybe not mother of pearl, I have a knife i made for myself 24 or 25 years ago and the micarta has shrunk so you can catch your nail on it, I do live in Nevada and it is dry here, have sent knives to the coast and they swell up, bought a collectors knife in California and took it to Idaho it shrunk so bad I had to regrind the tang and it was stabilized, that's what little I know about it. Deane
opaul
KNIFE MAKER
Some wood will move more than others and the capillaries differ among wood species. When I was building my sail boat the common command was 'do not use red oak', use white oak. I saw an example of where a fellow had cut a piece of red oak on the long axis and blew on it much like a straw in a glass of water. You could see bubbles coming up in the water, white oak not. Not disagreeing with anyone but different woods are going to react differently on a scale of 1-10.