Second attempt at pinned bolsters

PetrifiedWood

PetrifiedWood

Well-Known Member
This is my most recent build.

5/32" O1
full flat grind
desert ironwood scales
9" OAL, 4.5" blade
C360 brass bolsters.

I used a taper reamer on the pin holes and reamed them about 2/3 of the depth into the bolsters, then pounded the heck out of them with a hammer. You can just barely see one of the pins on one side of the knife so while it is a big improvement from my first set, it's not quite perfect. I'm not quite ready to try dovetailing the bolsters and scales yet. Perhaps on my next set of bolsters. Overall I'm pretty happy with the knife though!

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Excellent work. Really nice fit and finish. I think the Ironwood and brass compliment each other nicely. I also like your mark being that I'm a N. O. Saints fan.
 
Thanks guys!

Darrin, I'm originally a Louisiana guy myself, born and raised in Metairie so the fleur de lis is no accident. :)
 
Hey, I've seen that knife before. Good to see you here PetrifiedWood. Great looking knife man.

I want to try bolsters on my knife and was wondering what size material you use for the pins. I'm about ready to drill the holes and wanted to know if there is a "best" size. I think I saw a tutorial on attaching bolsters around here somewhere. Going to have to dig around.

Hope all is good in your neck of the woods.

-Steven
 
Who dat ? Who Dat Makes Dat Knife? Lol another La boy here as well! Thats a good looking blade for sure.
 
Steven Long said:
Hey, I've seen that knife before. Good to see you here PetrifiedWood. Great looking knife man.

I want to try bolsters on my knife and was wondering what size material you use for the pins. I'm about ready to drill the holes and wanted to know if there is a "best" size. I think I saw a tutorial on attaching bolsters around here somewhere. Going to have to dig around.

Hope all is good in your neck of the woods.

-Steven
Click to expand...

All is well, thanks!

I used 1/8" pins for this knife. There are several threads here that I relied heavily on to learn how to pin bolsters. As for the pin size, I read that you should have at least three pins in the bolsters. Since the bolsters are attached where the profile of the tang is narrowest, I wanted to use the smallest diameter pins that I felt were practical, in order to leave as much steel in this area as I could, for the sake of strength.

I've seen a lot of knives that have a big fat pin right in the narrowest part of the tang, which effectively makes the tang that much narrower by the diameter of the pin size. If you only have 5/8" or so to work with, then drill out for a 1/4" pin, you end up with only 3/8" of steel there. That's probably only an issue if you are really using a knife hard. But it is something to consider.

So to make a long story short, my choice of pin size had less to do with their suitability for holding on the bolster than it had to do with removing the least amount of steel from the narrowest part of the tang.
 
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