making a knife and a sheath, part 5 - attaching the handle to the blade

2 Attachment(s)

Right once I had got the shape of the wood to match the shape of the handle tang it was time to bolt and glue the handle slabs in place so that the actual grip of the handle could be fleshed out.
You see at the moment the slabs are just flat sided with sharp edges sort of 2-dimensional, not very comfortable to hold, but the right shape, once I have mated the handle in place it can then be shaped into a comfortable shape, essentially 3-dimensional.

So I laid everything out, gave everything a quick once over with sandpaper to rough it up to give better surface contact for the epoxy, wiped it down with acetone to remove any oils then mixed the epoxy and glued it up.
Once it was glued I pushed in the lanyard tube and placed the loveless bolts in the handle, then it was just a matter of tightening the bolts with a screwdriver (brilliant system), until everything felt good and firm, wipe off the excess glue and leave it to cure, after about 30 hours I took a hacksaw to the bolts and chopped the buggers off, then it sanded it smooth.

Attachment 38620

Attachment 38621

Now its a matter of sanding it to shape, lots of sanding...

Shelley

So the loveless bolts act as dowels only ?

MSL, nah totally different, because you drill two size's of holes they bind together like two little double sided vices holding the slabs to the tang, extremely strong, glue is there more to fill the gap and add strength over a greater length, it's the levels bolts that have locked it together, as you tighten them up they push a LOT of the glue out, good system, well worth the $4 bucks or so each.