fatchap Posted June 4, 2019 Report Share Posted June 4, 2019 (edited) How long should it take to stick a set of scales onto a knife handle? 1 hour? 2 tops? Taken me 6 hours so far and I'm still not finished. I thought it would be a doddle of a job, and could squeeze it in amongst the half a dozen projects I got on the go at the moment. This is the knife in question Given to me by a mate who wants a handle put on it, Cover the hole don't need that, Easy peasy....yeah right turned out to be a total nightmare, nothing went right, I had just the one scale which I planned to cut down the middle as this knife don't warrant chunky scales so onto the bandsaw and began to cut, noticed its going ski wif, no problem start again from the other end again it began to stray, *** is going on ere then, turns out the scale aint square so had to cut by hand, I have a Japanese pull saw that made light work of it, ONE HOUR GONE!! I got some orange liners that where going to look the dogs danglies, but would they stick? NO!!. 2 HOURS GONE!! Ok forget the liners stick the scales straight on the metal not forgetting to run a burl over it to roughen. I catch the hole with the burl the blade shoots out of my hand and disappears somewhere under the workbench. I have to pull everything out 3 HOURS GONE.!! Getting a tad perturbed by now. I retrieve errant knife and with the assistance of a G clamp I score the metal and scales and apply the 2 pk. Wait for glue to cure 4 HOURS GONE. Shaping goes with no drama, So now all I have to do is level the scales on both sides round them off sand sand sand and polish...or so I thought.. Started on the belt grinder with a 120 grit, put the knife against the belt fence and began a nice side to side motion, not much preasure and then the worst of the worse occurs, the tensioner goes on the belt firing the two wheeled head forward and pretty much destroying 4 hours work.Massive gouge in the scale, blade badly scored plus numerous digs and dents. Stop have a rolly and a coffee and rethink the situation. Repaired the tensioner spring, belt back on. 5 HOURS GONE. Now I'm going to have to give the blade a mirror polish obviously both sides. I managed to save the scale but was unable to fully get rid of the gouge which you can see in picture looks like a line running top to bottom Don't have the materials to replace completely and that line certainly draws the eye. Managed to polish and cover the damage to the blade 6 HOURS GONE What a mission and I still have more to do to it. Sorry for going on but I have never had so many problems thrown at me, I could have forged, ground tempered the blade in that time its took to put a couple of scales on. Edited June 4, 2019 by fatchap Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ditchman Posted June 4, 2019 Report Share Posted June 4, 2019 wooow that is a lovely finish tool..................nice one babe (excuse the language im snorkeling in red wine at the moment) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fatchap Posted June 4, 2019 Author Report Share Posted June 4, 2019 Snorkeling in red wine? never heard it put quite like that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stu64 Posted June 5, 2019 Report Share Posted June 5, 2019 That is cool. It looks like 6 hours work if you know what i mean. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gordon R Posted June 5, 2019 Report Share Posted June 5, 2019 That is nothing less than superb. I envy your talent. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dead eye alan Posted June 5, 2019 Report Share Posted June 5, 2019 How do you do that? its beautiful! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fatchap Posted June 5, 2019 Author Report Share Posted June 5, 2019 (edited) Thanks for the compliments chaps. Glad to say matey was over the moon with it. Now just got 3 sticks to make, 1 catapult, 2 stickleback knives. and a swim rake by next Saturday Edited June 5, 2019 by fatchap Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fatchap Posted June 5, 2019 Author Report Share Posted June 5, 2019 6 minutes ago, dead eye alan said: How do you do that? its beautiful! The mirror polishing does take up some time, but on the right blade it looks cool and is worth the time and effort, You start out with scotch wheel on the dremmel for a nice satin effect then its 120 wet n dry and after about 2 hours working up to 2000 grit, it should be shiny. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dead eye alan Posted June 5, 2019 Report Share Posted June 5, 2019 Amazing! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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