partial tang

[aprayinbear]

Thanks for all the responses folks!

Seems to be a little confusion over my original question. I was asking about cutting the slot for a pinned,partial tang knife.

I know its not very traditional, but I have used a table saw to cut the slot. The kerf from single pass is a bit too narrow and is too small to get a decent sized file through. Trying to make repeated passes is very difficult if you want to keep it neat. So I usually just fold up some old sand paper and sand to size (that's a lot of sanding.) An old trick from arrow makers when cutting nocks is to tape 2-3 hacksaw blades together to get the right thickness of cut. Just wondering what others do.

For many years I was a furniture maker and had a little shop where I worked alone. For years, whenever I was glueing up table legs, I would clamp them together one at a time. Then one day I hired an employee that saw what I was doing and politely asked, "Why don't you glue up 6-8 at a time?" My answer.... I just hadn't thought about it.

So anytime I struggle with something I am working on I have to ask myself, what am I missing. Just looking for a better way.

Happy Hammerin'! :thumbsup:

 

[paulvallandigham]

Is there some reason you don't use a Router bit in a table mount to cut these slots?

 

[LRB]

If you're trying to be correct in your design, it will have a tapered slot for a tapered tang, if the tang will show in the finished knife. Relativly easy in wood, not so easy in antler.

 

[paulvallandigham]

I did my first channel for a tang with nothing more than a hammer and chisel. Today, I would remove most of the wood for a tapered tang, particularly a half tang, using a router, and sawblade, and then use my chisel to remove the rest of the wood.

I don't even want to think about trying to cut antler for a tapered partial tang! :surrender: :hmm: :thumbsup: The Stench is terrible! :barf:

 

[J.M.]

I have used a drywall saw which works well. The one I have cuts a 3/32 slot, so I use 3/32 stock and get a nice fit. I have also used a metal cutting bandsaw to open up a slot. The blade is moving slow so it doesnt stink up the house (too bad) and you have enough control to make sure the cut doesnt get away on you.

 

[LRB]

Paul, after having to go into a trench full of dead animal parts, which have been under wet dirt for a couple months, to find suitable deer leg bones, I find the smell of antler almost pleasant. I have to do that every couple of years or so to get my supply of bones. I wear rubber boots, rubber gloves, and a mask with Vicks vaporub on it, and it still stinks.

 

[paulvallandigham]

I Bet! I am not too fond of the smell of Vicks, as it is! :shocked2:

I think if you remember to wear a dust mask- one of those styrofoam cheapies available at most paint and hardware stores, most of the odor is barely tolerable. Its getting the bone dust in my nose that makes it unbearable. :thumbsup:

I am not a wilting violet when it comes to dirty work. I cleaned sewers- storm-- and a few spill from sanitary sewers that either went into the storm sewers, or came up and out onto someone's lawn- for a summer job. I am pretty good at detaching my senses from this kind of foul work. However,my mother would meet me at the back door with a clean pair of blue jeans, and I would take off my work cloths in the garage, change into the jeans, and then take those clothes down to the washing machine in the basement, put them in with soap and turn on the machine. Then it was upstairs to take a shower to get that smell out of my hair, and sweat.

But, I swear, that the odor of burned Antler is as bad as that of human flesh burned, and sewage.

I once tried to use a small wood chisel to cut out a groove in a side of antler for a tang. The material was taking small chunks out of the edge of the chisel, so I stopped. I didn't have a metal chisel narrow enough, so I resorted to using a saw blade.

The next antler I used for a handle got a hole drilled down it, the diameter of the tang, and epoxy used to fill in the gaps, when I set the tang into the handle. No regrets on my part at all! It was a lot less work, altho I still had the smell to deal with, and the dust.