Fredeen Blades

graham when you make yuor gards how do you cut the slot in it?i just did my first and there has to be a easer way than drilling it out and fileing it.or is that how you do it?

There are a few options for slotting guards and I have used both. The first method is the drilling a series of holes and filing to open the slot method. I use this method a lot since I don't have a mill (thats another piece of equipment on the list for the future). Another method is to drift a slot in the guard. You can get a rough slot opened up by drilling and filing, or hot slitting, or hot punching, then actually fit the guard onto the tang hot (using the tang like a drift, clamp the blade in a vise handle up, put on the hot guard, and hammer the guard down to fit it to the shoulders. You can make a tool out of an old pipe and a plate with a slit welded on to hammer the guard down with to prevent from deforming it too much). This must be done before you HT the blade as the blade will heat up pretty quickly. You will want to make sure to keep the tang relatively cool, by pulling the guard off and cooling the tang periodically (like any drifting procedure when you pull the drift and cool it to prevent it from becoming too hot and deforming). That or you can grind out a designated drift the same dimension as your tang and use it to drift the slot. Keep in mind this is only good for stee/iron guards, and you will have to oversize the parent stock a bit as there will be some deformation to deal with. On thinner guards or guards with more simple (flat) faces, and non ferrous guards, I just drill and file as it is not too horrible, but for more complex guards with more complex shapes (or thick guards) I will tend to hot drift my slots. Milling the slots would be the easiest and prefered option if you had the equipment.

Forgot to mention, you can also do multi piece guards (front and back and center pieces, or wrap around), and solder everything together (works best with something like nickel silver if you don't want to see the solder seams). You can also do this with brass and braze the pieces directly to the blade. I have never tried this, but I have seen it done. 

The japanese made habaki in a similar method. They would take a piece of copper or brass (or whatever the desired material) and hammer and fold it to wrap around the blade with a seam at the front edge. Then they would make a small wedge that would fill the gap at the front and solder it in place. Then they would go about all of the shaping and ornamental work on it.

thanks,i only have one good hand,i got shot in the sholder and it hamburggerd the nerves in my right arm,i can still use it but it's tuff.i have to think things out a little more bbut i get it done,thanks again.

I have been thinking about getting a spot welder for bolsters.  This would work for damascus and stainless I guess but I'm not sure about brass.

ernie 

I don't know how well a spot welder would work for this application. Most spot welders are only good for sheet metal, thin stuff. I think 115 V spot welders are usually only rated for 1/8" and a for a 220 V unit, 3/16". Most of my bolsters are a minimum of 1/4" plus blade thickness, I don't think they'd handle it. I'm sure there are large industrial spot welders that can run thicker, but your talking some serious money then. Spot welding will probably distort damascus patterning as well. Spot welder won't work on brass, that will have to be brazed, or pinned. I usually pin my bolsters. With homogeneous materials (brass, steel, nickel, etc) you can get the pins to be invisible (so long as you use the same material for the pins as the bolster, slightly different alloys or grades can leave the pins visible). Additionally, you can pin internally (for alignment) and solder.

thanks that is good advise.  I will give pins a try.  My soldering has been hit and miss and the cleanup of excess solder is always a pain.

Pinning is pretty painless once you know what you are doing. Pinning is my first choice when it comes to attaching bolsters. Its the strongest, most reliable, and frankley easiest method. A couple of tips, firstly make sure to sand and clean your pins well, any dirt or corrosion will leave them visible. When I pin I like to drill my standard hole for the pin (same size as the pin) then, drill in with a slightly larger hole (not very deep) and then counter sink slightly. This creates a place for the pin to expand into when you pein it over, locking the bolster in place, ensuring it will never slip. Other than that, just pein will and grind flush, sand and polish and you should have a seamless fit.

For cleaning up excess solder its best to get most of the big globs off while its still hot, using a wet rag. To get the dried stuff off without scratching the blade all up, you can use a brass rod that you've ground a little rounded over chisel type point on, to scrape and clean the solder joint. The brass will be hard enough to take care of the solder, but wont scratch or gouge the blade.

the counter sink idea sounds like a winner, I will give that a try this week.

Great, let me know how it goes. Just remember to keep the couter sink really small, nothing like counter sinking for a screw head or anything, the end of the pin must be able to expand and completely fill the area.