I already got a few nice idea's thanks to the ABS website and this forum:

1) It is a little hard to see but in the first picture the handle has my Grandfathers initials on it, SON, I'm going to give silver wire inlaying a shot when I get the new handle on to put his initials in it as well as my Fathers and mine initials on the other side, MAN. (Old family superstition where we spell something with our initials for good luck, I broke that tradition with my son though, RDN)

2) I saw the video on how to do wire inlaying with metal and I will put I think a brass wire design on the pummel with a design that my Grandfather used a lot which also happens to be on the leather sheath for the knife (a 'N' with a compass style arrow pointing up in the middle of it). I wont do this part until I get a little better, but I look forward to it.

I got to knocking the old rotten wood off of the knife and saw this...

this set me back on my idea for the new handle, not sure how to go about tackling this now.

I noticed that the original handle had the following design:

-made of 3 sections with a thin piece of metal between each section that had some type of blueish-green material on both sides of the metal

-the guard is opened in the back but is cut to shape of the front part of this tang

-the hollow center was filled with glue

The current idea that I have from looking at this is maybe drill 3 more holes and do 4 pins, but that hollow center is really bugging me.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Damn that's a tuff 1. Hopefully somebody with more experience then me can help you out. That's crazy how the middle of the tang is just hollow <img src=' http://www.americanbladesmith.com/ipboard/public/style_emoticons//unsure.gi f' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':unsure:' /> . I would think that would make for a weak Knife. That's cool though, trying to fix up your grandfathers knife. Anyway good luck

Jason

Jason,

Thanks for the reply, I know the hollow middle tang is very odd, not sure what they were thinking when they made this.

Well I managed to get the following done today:

-guard off

-managed to clean off all of the glue/wood/rust on the tang

-did a little cleanup on the blade itself

I still need to get the pommel off, should I try to drill the pins out or does anyone have a better way of getting one off?

Here's a rough idea of what I'm planning.

Michael, drilling those pins out won't be too tough, just take your time. Drawing from my aircraft repair experience when drilling out rivets to disassemble a component of similar assembly here is how I would handle it.

The pommel was likely countersunk slightly so the pin could be peened creating a grip to hold it in place.

Set it up in your drill press vice (hoping you can do that) with the pin lined up as best as you can align it with the drill.

Start with a drill about half the size of the pin and drill down slightly (about 1/16" - 1/8") into the center of the pin.

Now take a drill just slightly smaller than the head of the pin slowly and carefully drill into the pin.

DO not drill deeper that the point of the drill, just bump the drill slightly to the pin head.

The object here is to only remove the peened end of the pin, leaving the pin so you can drive it out with a small punch.

Also, there is likely some dissimilar metal corrosion between the brass/aluminum & steel so soak the handle overnight in some brake fluid or other light oil and let it creep into the areas to help loosen all that up. Pour some in a small can and set it handle down into it.

Hope this helps

I would advise against trying to drill the pin out as most likely the drill,especially small ones will drift/walk into the softer material and come out misaligned on the other side.

Craig,

Thank you for the info! I will give that a try, it looks like it might be misaligned like you said so I will be careful.

Again thank you Craig! I managed to get the pommel off with your advice.

Now to figure out how I will do the hand guard, did a rough sketch on what I was thinking of doing, but due to the double tang, I might need to do a casting for the hand guard.