Question 's re: assmbling a knife.

[KevO]

Having never put together or made a knife I have a few question's.  Can a decent knife be made by taking a piece of deer antler and drilling a whole the length of it and then inserting a blade with a full length tang?.  Will epoxy hold it permanently? If so, what type/brand and what type of spacer, if any can I put at the base of the blade & end of the handle? Thanks

[gables]

You mention full tang knife but describe a hidden tang knife. You can split the antler and glue and pin it to the sides of a full tang blank. You can also drill a hole and insert a hidden tang blank. The only hidden tang knife blanks I know of are by Helle knives. Jantz knife supply sells guards that are preslotted and only require touch up with a file for a tight fit. Jantz also sells material that can be used as a butt cap. You need to choose an epoxy with a long setup time versus a 5 minute epoxy. On hidden tang blades, I like to rough up and file nicks in the tang to help anchor it in the epoxy.

[akaboomer]

I still recomend pins regardless of what epoxy. Some sort of mechanical means of fastening. Whatever you do please post the results.

Chris

[KevO]

Thanks