June 28, 200917 yr This knife is a drop point hunter with a blade of 19C27 stainless steel that has been heat treated and cryogenically treated. The Guard and butt cap are 416 stainless, the spacers are black with thin nickel and acrylic. The handle material is a maple burl that has been dyed and stabilized for long life.
June 28, 200917 yr Rich, that is one very nice skinner. It has everything a beautiful knife needs and none of the excess. I like its clean design and wonderful finish.
June 28, 200917 yr Nice, I like the style, reminds me of Rauna, and some others of the early day makers. Classic
June 29, 200917 yr Rich, that's a real beauty! On a build like this with stainless guard and blade is the guard silver soldered to the tang? How is the butcap attached? Also, do you glue up the handle assembly first, then drill and fit to the tang, or do you "re-fit" the parts to the tang, then glue up "on" the tang, or off the tang, then final fit? I know, lotsa questions. Really, like it.
June 30, 200917 yr Author Guard is soft soldered to the blade..the tang is lengthend and threaded on the end, the butt cap is blind threaded. All handle pieces are drilled and slid on one at a time with epoxy, butt cap is tightened down and the next day the handle is finished.
June 30, 200917 yr Cool. For some reason I had it in the back of my head that Stainless didn't like solder. Not the case I suppose. when you say "soft solder" you're talking about the low melting temp silver bearing solder right? I'm going to have to give the threaded tang technique a try. do you loctite the but cap so it don't come loose?
June 30, 200917 yr Cool. For some reason I had it in the back of my head that Stainless didn't like solder. Not the case I suppose. when you say "soft solder" you're talking about the low melting temp silver bearing solder right? I'm going to have to give the threaded tang technique a try. do you loctite the but cap so it don't come loose? We used Hard Silver solder on 316 stainless steel tubing to contain pressure up to 4000 psig. Stainless love silver solder. I've built instrument manifolds and analysis stations using silver solder and stainless tubing form 1/16 tubing stainless up to 1 inch Id vacuum fittings. With the right torch and good solder and careful cleaning silver solder is a real kick.
July 1, 200917 yr The Ace hardware solder is also sold for jewelry repair. It is good stuff. I just wanted to bring out that stainless and silver solder were made for each other. I've also used it to repair some no critical some not critical breaks in cast steel.
July 1, 200917 yr Nice, I like the style, reminds me of Rauna, and some others of the early day makers. Classic It seems that master's knives take on a trademark appearance; recognizable at first glance. I can tell a Rich Hale knife usually before I see his name. Having enjoyed his contributions over the years, I am never disappointed with the next. IMHO, Rich Hale knives will always be timeless classics.
July 1, 200917 yr Not to get O/T, but Charlotte, I've read that stainless needs the right flux for high temp silver solder/brazing. Has that been your experience, and what flux do you use? Very nice knife, Rich.
July 1, 200917 yr The HT silver solder I used was packaged with flux. I purchased at local welding supply
July 1, 200917 yr Not to get O/T, but Charlotte, I've read that stainless needs the right flux for high temp silver solder/brazing. Has that been your experience, and what flux do you use? Very nice knife, Rich. Company policy was to use Eutectic brand products for brazing stainless.Eutectic North America's Web Page As I said, the main point is just that it does work well when doing stainless and that it is a resource for the Blacksmith. P.S. ATM I have the Ace hardware silver in my shop. I don't see why you would need anything different for knives. Doing foods service you have to be cadnimum free. That's a whole other thing. Edited July 1, 200917 yr by Charlotte P.S.
July 1, 200917 yr MattBower, Sorry I just realized that I didn't exactly answer your question. My experience is based on using fluxes and materials that were labled for use on stainless steel. I've never tried to use anything but labled products on stainless. I do know that for the solder to flow properly into a joint it must be fluxed poperly. We did have a few joint failures which, when analyzed by home office safety team were assigned to improper joint preparation. (Fortunately it wasn't my personal work involved I only worked on laboratory equipment where I was the user, designer, fabricator, and maintence)
July 1, 200917 yr Author To go back a few steps..I use a lead free solder that is sold for household plumbing and it melts at 430f. It comes with a flux and I use it to solder the joint between the guard and the stainless blade. The guard is a tight fit and held in place by not only the solder but by the handle material itself being epoxied in place on the other side of the joint. My first expectation of this joint is to block any materials from getting in between the blade and the guard and the second is to make a nice, seamless blending of the blade and the guard. I know there are other materials to use for this but this has worked for me a long time. I do not use it on damascus blades or on blued fittings.
July 1, 200917 yr Author I did not even think of it as a hijack Matt. Rabbit trails are great ways to learn from each other. I just did not want folks to get lost at an intersection and perhaps use a high temp silver solder and take the temper out of a carbon blade along the way. The high temp I use flows at over 1100f Edited July 1, 200917 yr by Rich Hale ................................
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.