Seems like this is just for me as im just getting into handles and guards as of last week. Ordered Joe Keeslers "Handles and Guards" Book and this topic just adds to it. Thank you all very much for your time and knowledge that you share. Its truly appreciated.

Lin, have you tried it with a 4 sided shoulder?

JJ, not yet. I see no reason why it would not work in the same way.

I know many of you have this next little trick in your bag already but some have yet to see it. This is the simple, down and dirty, finial. That description is not really fair since it is very strong and works like a charm. This is just a ball finial, but you can shape it any way you want. If it is a ball like this, I also will countersink the butt cap so 1/3 of the ball is nested into it.

I first pick a machine screw size with threads that I like and buy a bunch, like maybe a box of 100. And I also buy a box of coupling nuts to match. More on that later. I will be hard soldering one of the machine screws to a block of finial material, in this case, stainless. If I have to forge a bar to a usable shape, I will and cut into the bar to form a cube or something close. The cut goes about 3/4 of the way through but I leave it on the bar so I can hold it in a vise. This cut also isolates the heat evenly in the cube preventing the bar from sucking away the high heat necessary for hard soldering. Edited to add: I drill into the cube, maybe 1/8 inch, to create a pocket for the machine screw to sit loosely in.

I hard solder it and finish cutting the cube off from the bar. I then, by hand, start to grind the corners away to start getting to a round shape.

You can see that it is working into a ball.

After a little eyeballing, it gets to where you can chuck it up in a cordless drill and spin it on the grinder. Both drill and grinder are running opposite direction to one another. I us the rotary platen for a spongy backing.

You can finish it to the extend you want. Here is the machine screw in the coupling nut attachment that will be pinned to the tang.

This is how the finial will look on the knife.

I know I sound like a broken record, but I just love this education I'm getting here. Great information!

I know I sound like a broken record, but I just love this education I'm getting here. Great information!

That's good stuff, Lin. Thanks.

Unfortunately I didn't take any progression photos of this but here's a finished photo showing another possibility by forging your fixtures. This d-guard was made of 416 and as you can see I forged parts of it into different thicknesses, adding to the 3-dimensional effect of the guard which would have nearly impossible without forging. The end of this d-guard was then threaded and screwed into the lathe turned pommel giving it added strength.

A material that I forgot to mention earlier that can also be forged is brass. This however is probably the most difficult of the materials to use as it has a very narrow heat window where it can be effectively forged. I found that it had to be worked at a dull to bright red color. If you try to forge it a little too cold it will nearly always crack leaving you to start over. Also if you overheat it, the brass it will slump and become so soft that it is ruined, leaving you to start from the beginning one more time. It can however be successfully forged if you are very careful about your heat. Both the semi-circular guard & pommel of this one were forged to shape. The guard was first slotted and then slid in place over the tang of the blade and hammered to match the curve that I had ground into the back of the blade. Since the size of the piece was so small it quickly lost heat and this had to be repeated two or three times before I had it completely forged to shape. The pommel was bent & forged around a custom jig also requiring multiple reheats.

Gary

Here's another style of guard that was forged from a piece of 3/4" round. Note: It's easier to slot the guard for the tang before bending the guard into the "S" shape.

Gary

I just completed a different style of D-Guard that you may be interested in. Here's a bit of the progress:

After I finished forging and grinding the final shaping was done with an oxy/acet torch:

I know that I didn't capture all of the progress but hopefully this will give you a good idea of how it came together.

I just finished sanding the second blade that went into the heat treat stage. The first knife is glued up but no guard because it is too ugly and badly ground to be anything but my fireside wood splitting knife. The second is still ugly as sin but a huge improvement. I am going to put a guard on this one after I sand all the marks from the 40 grit off. Thanks for all the ideas! I don't have a mill or any fancy tools. I am going to drill, file, and drift the guard.

I just finished sanding the second blade that went into the heat treat stage. The first knife is glued up but no guard because it is too ugly and badly ground to be anything but my fireside wood splitting knife. The second is still ugly as sin but a huge improvement. I am going to put a guard on this one after I sand all the marks from the 40 grit off. Thanks for all the ideas! Hopefully I will be able to post a picture of my ugly knives LOL

G'day all

Love that ball end guard Lin. I forge half penny guards much as Lin showed except to flatten the balls into a disk instead. The one thing I do do that is different is I always leave parallel material along where the guard slot will be in order to orient it in the mill vice. I then shape the penny ends to round disks and scribe centre lines up over and around the penny's and down the centre of the material for the tang slot. This really helps me keep even material along the face of the guard so the centreline of the disks is in line with the edge. Man that seems like a lot of words to describe it and I'm not sure its clear. After the slot is in and the guard is fitted I use a template around the ricasso to scribe the final guard shape and machine/grind as necessary.