I have no problems making decent looking wa handles, but I'm still confused on how/when to drill the tang hole, what size it should be in relation to the tang, and the process of adding the epoxy/tang. Could one of you guys enlighten me?
BTW, I do not own a mill, just a drill press.
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." --Albert Einstein
Before you put the tang in!Originally Posted by rockbox
Larger than the tang!!
You mix the epoxy, get the long cure time stuff....put it in the tang hole and let it settle to the bottom of the tang hole for a few minutes....set the tang in the hole.
Any more smartass comments from you and I will have to bring up the head-to-head record between Texas and Nebraska football.
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." --Albert Einstein
Ouch!!
How do you determine how much epoxy to put in the tang hole? Dave told me to use System Three T-88 to fill and Devcon 2 Ton to seal. After the tang goes in, should the epoxy nearly fill the tang hole, and then fill the remaining bit with Devcon?
"God sends meat and the devil sends cooks." - Thomas Deloney
I would say if it flows over, you used too muchsee, I can smartass with the best of them - and I am immune against you threats, because I don't know a thing about American football
Stefan
You might not care about American football...but at least my carbon knives don't rust away like an old chevy!
"God sends meat and the devil sends cooks." - Thomas Deloney
Ouch!
O.k., I find it easier to drill the slot into the main handle piece before I glue everything together. That way you may not need extra long drills, and it's easier to stay straight with the shorter travel. If I use spacers, I also predrill everything. Of course, you need to be careful that you align everything correctly and things don't shift while the epoxy sets.
Since I often don't know what the knife tang looks like, I oversize the inner tang slot slightly to accomodate twisted or curved tangs. You need a bit more epoxy that way to fill it up, but you also have a little wiggle room if the slot is not perfectly straight, which can still happen with a drill press at the price level I can afford. Depending on the size of the handle, I may use 1/4" drills or even wider - I have seen some pretty crooked tangs... If you have the knife in front of you, you can work much more precisely - Marko us going that route and may have more tips there.
Into the ferrule piece I drill a thinner, undersized slot. That slot then gets filed open to snugly fit the tang. In a perfect setup (as if this did ever happen...), you would then fill in epoxy, insert the tang and it would be straight because you filed a perfect fit into the ferrule.
I'm bad at estimating how much epoxy you need to fill a handle, and mine always flow over - keep a wet rag handy. Some epoxies shrink when they set, so You will have to apply some more later, and that can then be a different kind or one mixed with wood dust or dye - Dave is the master of this.
I hope this helps,
Stefan
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