That wasn't supposed to happen

[JediOkie]

I'm working on my second knife kit currently. The first one went fine with no problems; however, while I was attempting to insert the brass pinstock in this one the pins pushed the handle material and broke it away from the tang of the knife. I sanded bothe the tang and handle material and then cleaned them before applying epoxy. I am using Defcon 2-ton epoxy and it had set for over 24 hours on one side and over 12 hours on the other. I understood that was the correct cure time for this product. The handle material is a dymonwood so I am wondering if one of the layers seperated or if it was an actual faliure in the epoxy. Anyway, to make a long story short, what should I do? Should I scrap this handle material in favor new? Has this happened to anyone else and if so what did you do? I am a little flustered and in need of someone with more experiance than I have.

Thank you in advance.

[mike6640]

from your description, the epoxy failed to grip the tang. I have scored or scraped the metal of the tang prior to epoxy, which allows it to fill the voids and be grippier.

Was this the first pin, or have you already peined another in?

If there are no other pins in, I would gently pry the scale off and reapply it with more epoxy after roughing up the tang and flat sanding the scale to remove the first layer of epoxy.

If there is already a pin in place, you can either drill out the pin or use a thin CA glue to glue the scale back down. The pins, if peined with a countersink, should hold the scale fairly well with a minimum amount of glue.

Hope this helps.

Mike

[JediOkie]

Originally Posted by mike6640

Was this the first pin, or have you already peined another in?

If there are no other pins in, I would gently pry the scale off and reapply it with more epoxy after roughing up the tang and flat sanding the scale to remove the first layer of epoxy.

If there is already a pin in place, you can either drill out the pin or use a thin CA glue to glue the scale back down. The pins, if peined with a countersink, should hold the scale fairly well with a minimum amount of glue.

Hope this helps.

Mike

The directions I recieved said to roll the pins in epoxy and thin pein them in place afterwards which is what I did with my first knife. This time I was setting the last pin and was going to let it set up over night and work on it tomorrow afternoon.

I actually didn't counter sink the last knife, so maybe I didn't pein it right...

[JediOkie]

Got the handle material off and resanded the tang of the knife (the handle material is now scrap unfortunately). Was wondering if Red Oak is a hard enough wood to use as handle material now. Also switching from pin stock rivets to 'loveless' rivets.

[EdStreet]

you may want to switch to something else besides devcon 2. there's a HUGE thread here about epoxy testing and all the results gave devcon F ratings.