[Jonathan Stanley]

I have been looking around in the gallery and I have been seeing allot of knives with end caps such as the one by Mr. David Loukides in the recent topic "First time post" (SUPER knife by the way) and have been wandering how to make a end cap myself.

To give you an idea of what I am working with, I have a 1" x 42" belt sander, a bench grinder, a drill press, a Dremel tool, and a vice.

I have tried hammering over the end of the tang to attach the end cap but it never has worked.


Again, any help would be great.

[Gabriel Ables]

From one apprentic to another:
First I would use the dremel to hollow out the hole around the end of your handle material a little so epoxy can pool just below the butt cap. I would then drill a straight hole in the butt cap. You could tap this hole or maybe chamfer it with a countersink bit. Then run a threaded machine screw, bolt, all thread, etc through the hole and cut it off so 3/8"-1/2" is exposed. Put your knife in the vise at glue up with the butt of your knife pointing up. Fill the tang hole with epoxy and glue on the butt cap. The threads of the screw would anchor in the epoxy. Then grind off the screw head, etc.

As far as peening the tang you sould make make sure the end of the tang is soft and that the tang fits snugly through the butt cap. I would slightly taper the hole in the butt cap. It takes quite a lot of peening and patience. Don't stop peening until you have a tight fit.

[Jonathan Stanley]

THANKS!!!

That really helped.

Don't know why I didn't try that before.

[BrionTomberlin]

Hello Johnathan. Normally when I do a buttcap, I will braze a threaded coupler onto the material to screw on the threaded tang, or I will braze a stub tang on such as a bolt. The threads will anchor the buttcap and epoxy will grip the thread.

However since you don't have a torch, I would suggest the peened tang, and make sure the end of the tang is dead soft and just like Gabe said " Go Slow". Another method is to have the tang come through the buttcap and thread the end, then use a finial nut to secure the assembly. Another possibility is to have a hole throught the buttcap where you would have a long threaded nut, known as a finial, screw on the tang. You have to make sure that you have tight fit of the finial through the cap. I would try the peening and see what you think of it.
Here is a shot of a cap that has a coupler brazed on and is screwed onto the tang.



Good luck and have fun.
Brion

[Jonathan Stanley]

Wow!,
Thanks Brion.

[Jonathan Stanley]

I tried both of your ideas and they both worked very well.
Thanks guys!

[Steve Culver]

Hi Jonathan,

I just remembered; I have a photo of a butt cap attachment on a slide show of a bowie knife build. The slide show is on my web site. Here's link to it. Bowie WIP

The attachment photo is in "Part 2".

[Jonathan Stanley]

Thanks!

[Jonathan Stanley]

Mr. Dan,
Do you know the current youngest member of the ABS other than me?