I'm going to make a couple knives, both handles will be a combination of stacked leather, wood, bone, or antler. Probably some silver or nickel liners or do you call them bolsters. Anyway you get the picture. So how do you hold it all together before grinding on a full tang with no pins. Top quality wood glue, epoxy?

Pre,
I don't know if I've ever seen a stacked leather handle on a full tang knife - I'm sure somebody has done this but it's not a method I know about. That being said, the key to a nice stacked leather handle is pressure. I do use epoxy and use a vise setup to squeeze the bejesus out of the stack.

After grinding to shape, I use thin crazy glue as a finish on the leather

I think Pre is saying that his hidden tang is a full tang. Sometimes the names for things get confused. By the way I'm making a handle out pvc pipe that I've flattened and glued together to make slabs. Putting it on a hidden tang with some brass pins, it's sure to be f'ugly but I think it's going to be "hell fer stout!"

the chef

Well, you never know what's going to wake one up in the middle of the night, but I definitely prefer to ponder other people's problems rather than worrying about my crazy job or menopausal spouse.

Iffen it was a full tang thinks I, maybe epoxy and squeeze the stack of leather washers indepenent from the knife, then bandsaw the stack lengthwise after the epoxy is rock hard, to make two leather washer slabs.

Prewar, if you have any advice on how to maintain oneself in the last decade of an engineering career, or how to accept the better half has taken leave of her senses, please do tell.

All the best,
BT

yeti ..
i have advice... Hendrick's gin, applied internally.. to which party is largely unimportant

Are you thinking something similar to Ka-Bar style?

Rich

quote:

Originally posted by Prewar70:
I'm going to make a couple knives, both handles will be a combination of stacked leather, wood, bone, or antler. Probably some silver or nickel liners or do you call them bolsters. Anyway you get the picture. So how do you hold it all together before grinding on a full tang with no pins. Top quality wood glue, epoxy?

As has been said, unless you're using a really small blade, such as a very small paring knife, you can't reasonably use leather rings to make a grip on a full tang knife unless you've got hands the size of footballs. Leather is fairly "grippy" if left natural, but either requires maintenance or will look like hell after using it for a while. Whether that would bother you or not is your call.

BTW easier to make and put on, and more long-lived, if you want nearly impervious handles use micarta in your color choice, epoxied and pinned on and then texture the surfaces for a good grip. It's easy to do with the edge of a grinding wheel, knife well clamped in vise. Of course, checkering is nice, but much more time consuming.