Knife Making how to make and mount Brass Bolsters

welcome to DIY easy crafts calm how to make brass bolsters for any full-tang knife now bolsters can really enhance the appearance of almost any knife a little bit of brass you can do them in other materials copper I've used they really just added a nice flare to the blade and they're relatively easy to make and to attach now I start with a quarter inch by 1 inch brass stock and what I usually do is just lay it on top of or underneath the blade and just rough out the shape that I want just with a black magic marker now before we get started let me just state the fact that this is not the only way to attach brass bolsters this is just the way that I do it I'm not even gonna claim that it's the best way it's just the way that I do it I've had a number of people ask me to put this video together and so here it is I basically just cut two pieces of brass one for each side and then I clamp one of them on to the blade into position and I hold that on a flat surface and I do a partially drilled hole through that bolster I only you know go in a little bit enough to make an indent I'll show you exactly what I mean in a minute so I'm basically drilling through the holes that are already on the knife into the bolster the backside of the bolster so really all I'm doing is making location marks then I'm gonna go over to the drill press I'm gonna clamp both of these bolsters both sides into the vise at the same time so now that they're flat against the bottom of the vise and they're also flat against both sides of the vise I'm then going to use those location holes locate and position that vise exactly where I want it and then clamp it into position I use eighth inch pins to secure my bolsters then I'll turn on the vise and I'll drill right through you know both halves both sides and I'm basically just gonna repeat the same process for the second whole you know loosen device the c-clamp that I have attaching the vise to the drill bed I'm going to with the drill of course off locate that location hole and then once I'm satisfied that that drill bit is going into that indent nicely I'll secure the vise in place and then I'll drill through both halves for the second hole and what you end up with is two pieces of brass that have identical holes hopefully in alignment with the holes that were pre drilled through the knife handle of before hardening now the brass stock that I get which is usually either at a hobby shop or from Home Depot is a little bit larger than 1/8 so I do with some fine Emery just lap it down just you know I put the brass pin in the drill and just let it spin and I hold the Emery cloth this is the first test fit to make sure that the bolsters fit they are not shaped yet I'm just making sure that the holes are aligned and that everything fits together I'm just gonna mark with a black magic marker you know the basic shape I don't bring these into size until after they're secured to the blade but I can rough them down a little bit I do want to leave them a little bit oversized and I'm gonna start playing with the shape on the front of the bolster you know where I want that to end up with this at this point is very rough just a general idea then with an angle grinder and a flap sanding wheel I can start working on shaping especially the front edge of the bolster the top and bottom I can actually shape on a on a belt sander those goes a little bit faster but the curves the flap sanding wheel on an angle grinder work really nicely or or end after you done with the rough grinding with the angle grinder you can move over to a dremel grinder with one of these son drum sanding wheels on it and that does a nice draw for really smoothing out all of the rough edges [Music] now the most of one of the most important parts of this whole process is that that back edge the edge that's going to mount against the scales or the handles of the knife we haven't tampered with that at all that's a hundred percent flat and at a ninety degree angle to both flats only really grinding the top the bottom and the front of each side of the bolster so another test fit starting to look at the at the shape and once I'm happy with that I can glue these into position now mounting these bolsters is very similar to mounting scales onto a knife I'm gonna mix up some two-part epoxy I'm going to apply epoxy to both bolsters as well as to both sides of the knife handle I've already sanded off all of the components and I've degreased them with some alcohol wipes let them completely dry and then I'm just going to glue these bolsters in place I push the pins through the holes allowing the other side and sometimes if they don't you know if those pins don't go in super easily you can use a pair of pliers or a vise grip what I do is I pull the pins back a little bit I added a little bit of that two-part epoxy onto the pins themselves I had already done the tips the other and for the forward end of the pins earlier and this way those pins really get glued and into place also now just like with knife handles or scales these are gonna this assembly is gonna go into the vise and I also add an additional clamp and then I let that sit and cure usually overnight you you probably don't have to wait that long but it's just the way that I do it now after that comes out of the vise and after I've added the handles in this case they're the walnut scales I'm then going to go over to the belt sander and bring everything in to size so I'm gonna sand down the bolsters as well as the handle and I'm gonna bring it in very carefully until I clean up the spine so if they're perfectly flush but the inner for the inside curves I'm using that flap sanding wheel on the angle grinder and at times I'll also go back to the dremel grinder and again I'm bringing in that outline of the bolster and the knife handle and the scales all at the same time so that everything's going to be kind of uniform and everything's gonna be even as far as grinding down the pins that are protruding from not only the handles but also from the bolsters it doesn't matter you can do that on a belt sander you can do it with a flap sanding wheel on the angle grinder for this particular knife I'm using the angle grinder and I'm just gonna polish them down until the pins are flush with that upper edge of that upper surface of the bolster and they're also going to then be flush with the surface of the handles so everything's going to kind of mend or blend together I'm gonna use that same flap sanding wheel and I'm gonna start to round over not only the handles but also both corners of the bolsters the upper edge and also the bottom edge and I just use this angle grinder just for the kind of the rough shaping after this I'll go to a oscillating sander and you know usually I start with a with a number 80 and then I'd go sand it to a 220 or so so now it's really starting to take shape feels comfortable on my hand I'm gonna polish it just on the bench grinder on a polishing wheel and usually I'll polish it once and then I'll take a real good look at it and see if there's any additional scratches or deeper scratches that have to be sanded back out and you know usually I don't get them all the first time I have to re-sand it and then we polish it you know a second time well that's basically what it looks like after the first polish and then this is the finished knife so you can see that the pins on the bolster you can't even see them they're all just blended together with the actual sides of the bolster the brass really stands out especially next to a dark wood like this walnut so anybody that's making a knife making doing full-tang knives I would highly recommend adding some some additional detail with these brass bolsters please check us out on the web at DIY easy crafts com be sure to check out our other how-to videos and if you like this video I ask that you please give it a thumbs up and subscribe to this youtube channel you

Channel: DIYeasycrafts

Views: 97,274

Keywords: Knife, knives, knife making, brass bolsters, brass guards, how to, how to make, how to make bolsters, knife bolsters, knife guards, brass pins, angle grinder, how to make a knife, metal working, belt sander, two part epoxy, blade smith, bladesmith, forged in fire

Id: eS8ulXL8jdc

Length: 11min 26sec (686 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 29 2017