New to knife making...Need some help

[Cmalone1]

Well I am getting into making some knives and I have a couple questions...Right now I do not have a forge or anything of that such so i'm trying to take knife blades and put new handles on them, buy blades from a smith and eventually make them out of saw blades...

I have made one so far that i am pretty happy with...it was a butcher blade and my dad found a nice buck this year so i'm taking the horns and making so knives out of them...

Two of my knives will be using the bases, I'm going to make bowies with them...my first question is how do you guys remove the material out of the center of the horn to put the tang in? On my bowies I would like it to all be concealed inside the horn so I don't want to push it through the bottom...I have heard to soak the horn in water for a LONG time and let it soften and then just shove the tang in...is this a good way? I'm buying a dremel tool because it seems like it could be really handy in shaping the horns and cutting out blades and horns...

My last question is about pins...In the knife i made so far i took a nail and drilled a hole, and pushed it through when i epoxied the blade in and let it dry...then I tried to grind down the excess after it had set up...started to heat up and melt the epoxy so there's still a little be left hanging out...how do you guys put the pins in and make them stay?

Any help at all will be REALLY appreciated and I will try to get some picturs up of the knife I have made...

Thanks,
Coty

[gables]

Use a drill bit and then maybe a round file or rasp to work out the pith of the horn material. When grinding pins you need to work very slowly to prevent the epoxy melting problems or to prevent making a burn ring around the pin in wooden handles. Cut the pins just oversize before gluing and/or use wire cutters to get them cut close to minimize grinding. When grinding barely touch the pins to a grinder and then let it cool. You can also work them down easily with a file.

Most people epoxy pins and/or peen them to make a rivet. Peening the pins requires you to drill tapered holes in the handle material on each side of the hidden tang. When you peen the heads the soft pin material will mushroom to fill the tapered hole, thus making a rivet of sorts.

You can also buy pins that screw together. Check the knifemaking sites.

Dremels are handy and have thier place. You may, however, find a good first purchase to be an angle grinder with grinding and cut off discs.

Don't overlook the search functions of this site. You could easily write a great knifemaking book from the previous posts.

[Cmalone1]

Thanks for the input gables...I was trying to do the mushroom effect but i ended up drilling my holes too big i think...the reason is it took me FOREVER to make the holes in my blade tang...i even heated up the blade and it didn't soften it ONE BIT!!

[Ragnarok Forge]

A cheap and reasonably effective forge would be a charcoal barbeque with a raise charcoal holder,.  Fill it up deep with charcoal let it get red hot and you can use that to heat small blades.  

If you boil the antler until the pith gets soft you can psh the antler down onto the tang and let it cool.  Search the web under antler handles or antler handles for knives and you will get a lot of ideas on how to do this right.  No glue is necessary.  The pith when boiled and then dried locks the tang in place.  I like to notch the edges of the tang to ensure a good grip on it.

[R H Clark]

I like to let my horn dry at least a year then drill out the pith with a hand drill sort of drilling and scraping with the turning bit.Then I use Accuraglass as an epoxy.