Making a 9" chefs knife. Things are going well. Forged to shape, heat treated, thinned down slightly and bevels ground in. Now im working on attaching the handle, and im second guessing myself here.

Ive made knives before, big, small, in between. Full tang, hidden tang, even did a couple burn ins just to see what happens. But for all of these handles, i always drilled and set pins in them. Because in the back of my head, somewhere i read or something like that, that having pins helps reinforce the handle for a thrusting motion. Helps keep the handle on the tang. 

But now im making this chef's knife,and decided that i didnt want to pin it. I would just do scales, epoxied on and sanded to shape. But today, im getting to the point where im about ready to glue it up, and in the back of my head, that little voice is screaming at me that i need pins in the handle. 

I know the epoxy im planning to use has some 5kpsi rating or whatever (id have to look at it again),and for a chefs knife, itll work. But that dang voice.

I guess i just need someone to tell me "yup, itll work" or "nope cuz of X" or "yes, itll work, but you need to do this as well".

hidden pin will give strength with out showing

6 minutes ago, Steve Sells said:

hidden pin will give strength with out showing

That....thats a really good idea.

Hidden or not I always pin scales, just don't trust any epoxy for the long run.

I agree with Irondragon.  I have never really trusted epoxy alone to attach handles, particularly over time.  Will that epoxy be as strong in 10, 20, or 50 years?  while not a consideration for a kitchen knife I would not want a belt/camp knife that might have brittleness issues in very cold weather, e.g. well below zero.  I suspect epoxy might have low temperature problems. 

I'm assuming that hidden pins would be attached to the tang and the scales would have holes partially drilled through their thickness and then be placed over the pins.

"By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

Reason i disregarded the pins at forst was that the only rod i own is just under 1/8". And the tang height is 3/4". Looking at it, to me, it wouldve looked weird. If i had 1/4 rod for pinning, then i think thatdve looked better. 

What ?  No old welding rods or electrical wire?  No copper grounding wire?

Lol!

Although, a copper wire wrapped handle sounds like a fun experiment to see what itd look like on another blade

I think Glenn was suggesting those as sources of pin material, not as a wrap.

Opinions vary on this, but I use the epoxy to seal the space between the tang and the handle material, and to hold the handle together until I get pins in.  I always have rivets or peened pins to create a mechanical connection.

On chef's knives, which I expect to get wet frequently, I use cutler's rivets.  However, the handle has to be mostly shaped before they go in because you don't get nearly as much room to shape the head of the rivet as you would with a corby bolt.  I epoxy on the scales, and do 90% of the shaping before counter-boring for the cutler's rivets.