Bear Damascus trapper part 6.

hardware came in!

 

 

 

 

Lotsof careful measuring and lathe turning later, and I have these, each head custom fit to its specific hole in the knife.

 

 

And these, that got ruined;

 

 

If lathe trurning the head on the one of these, do the barrel half of it with the barrel in the chuck, as one piece, NOT with the screw halfs’ head in the chuck, barrel unsupported, to turn the barrel sides head. It leaves All of the lateral force on the end of the threaded screw shaft where its head meets the barrel… and it WILL break off from the force! Copper is too soft for that opperation(I did it that way with the brass, no problem.)

Before installing screws I did a filal pass arond the outer edges of the spring and liners to even up the finish, and remove burrs.

There was probably 10 minutes of careful adjusting the three screws for perfect blade and spring tension, gap removal etc… Then, screw removal again, application of blue locktite to each screw, and re-setting the tensions. Fun. 😉 

Then, to the point of no return, cut the heads off as close to the handle as possible;

 

 

 

 

Then the last 10 minutes or so of shaping the pins down, final shaping and smoothing and rounding, tapering etc of the handle, and taking out any deep sanding parks in the copper.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And, thats it!

At least for now. My Buffer died a few weeks ago, so I can’t polish anything… So the satin/sanded finish on the copper, and the dull sheen on the bone is it for a little while before I can smooth it all out.

Its not perfect. It has some gaps, and chips, and bevels on liner edges that appear as gaps too. The ivot pin didn;t completely disapear, but its good enough! (it might go away further with buffing)

Ended with the spring a little proud of the liners when closed, but not really a lot.

The bolsters ended far from even side to side, both in length and angle to the scales. I knew about that after i cut them out, and got ready to solder them. I could have fixed it by simply re cutting the big one down… too much work at that point, I decided what the heck, why not, it didn;t have to be perfect. 🙂  

Its not as good as I wanted, but overall verry good for me considering how long its been since I’ve done much knife work, especially on folders… It was great fun, and lots of learning, both new, and old lessons. The next one will be easier, I’m sure! Better, is yet to be seen ;).

Its also proving to be a pain in the butt to get good whotos of… Either it blur/blends the colors and details out, or the edges and cracks stand out 20 times more than they do to the human eye… The satin washed out finish itself doesn;t help with this. Will be better after its buffed. Still, I’ll have to try for some shots in the daylight outside later.