"The following is a tutorial I compiled a while back and would like to share here. It is also on the Techniques, Master Class Page including the opened photos. All of the photos are by me except for the final photo of the finished knife, which is by Chuck Ward. Thank you". Lin Rhea MS

Someone asked me to take a few pictures while I was making and installing a guard soooooo......

This may not be the only way, but it's my way. It suits my tools and available materials. I've never watched anyone else while making one so there might be some things you see that are different. I learned this by trial and mostly error.

Again this is a hidden or stick tang application. Other steps and stages would apply for Full Tang construction.

First, I get the blade ready to accept the guard. I have it in the filing jig squaring the shoulders so the guard will fit almost seamlessly. A sharp file is a must.

Another view after it's filed while still in the jig.

Here is the blade filed on all four sides and ready for a guard. At this point care must be taken so as not to damage the blade's finish.

Now for the guard material. I use 416 stainless when available. Here is a bar of 3/8 X 3/4 along side the blade which is now wrapped and protected from scratches while all this is going on.

The guard is cut roughly to size.

Here is piece is rounded a little and flattened. I'm holding the blade tang on the guard material and marking the top and bottom of the tang. The rough size of the material is a little over sized at this point, as you can see. I want to slot the material and shape the whole thing in relation to the slot. Make sense?

Here I'm just showing that I clarified my marks and am ready to drill and slot this thing.

I won't go into detail about how to rough in the slot. I use a small milling machine. You can drill and file the hole too. Either way, the hole is now roughed in and I'm making sure that the fit is not sloppy and that I have room to do some hand work with files to get a press fit. You can see that the guard will only go up to this close and gets tight. Thats good.

The next step is to start shaping the guard into something that looks familiar. I like to start the finger curve on the backside of the guard, but using the 2 inch wheel on my grinder. Any or all of this can be done by filing or by another means, by the way. I use my grinder because it's faster and I'm used to it. You'll see that my hands are very close to the belt and yes sometimes I get bit a little. Also the guard will get hot fast, so have a bucket of water handy.

At this point the finger curve has a good start and the guard is still kind of blocky looking.

So now I want to start profiling the guard so I wont have to do so much after the handle material is on the knife. Some handle material is more sensitive to heat and too much shaping of the guard while the handle material is on could damage it. Now, I'm just profiling it a little.

I take a little time now to get the profile close to final shape allowing some room for final finishing with the handle material on. When I am happy that I have done all I can before installing the handle material, I finish the front of the guard to my final grit or finish type. The sides are still pretty rough, maybe 60 or 120 grit. At this point it looks like a guard.

OK here is where fitting a guard can get frustrating, but is really not that hard if you just set a standard. It needs to be tight, but not so tight that you damage the guard trying to press it on.

Here is the guard slid onto the tang and wont go any farther without some fine tuning.

I now will go to my guard clamp and try pressing it a little. Here is a picture of the clamp putting some pressure on it. Notice that it is not pushed up to the shoulders, but it's too tight to go any farther without refining the slot.

I'm just seeing what the guard will do, not applying too much pressure. This does something to the guard that tells me where to remove a little material. Notice the small dents in the rim of the slot, in this case, near the top and bottom. Look close.

I can take a small amount of material directly from these contact points and the guard will just keep moving on up. I follow this procedure until I have the guard on and there is no slack, but making full contact with the shoulders that I have filed in the blade's ricasso. I use 1/8 inch round files or some kind of needle files as I see the need.

I have to use magnifying glasses to see the contact points and work on these till I get it right. I mentioned standards. Dont settle for less than a good fit. The knife looks so much better when the blade come out of the guard like it grew there. This will be the focal point of the knife, the guard area.

OK, the fit is now good and we are ready to permanently install the guard. I like to use JB Weld to seal the guard/blade joint.

I need to make this clear. I dont rely on JB Weld to hold the guard secure. It's good stuff, for sure, but the press fit is what is the real strength of this joint. The JBW is like a third hand during the rest of the building process and ultimately will have the joint sealed from Water, blood, etc. The JBW will hold the proper fit that you've worked hard to get and allow you to concentrate on fitting the handle.

OK back to the guard.

The guard is ready to install. I clean the guard and the blade in the joint areas. I use acetone on a swab.

Then I mix enough JBW to seal the guard and apply it to the tang and shoulder areas.

The guard is on and clamped tight. The JBW should be squishing out all sides.

Then I clean off the excess of JBW with WD-40 on cotton swabs, taking time to get the whole area clean. The oil won't hurt the blade or guard so I use quite a bit just short of flooding it. If the fit is good, just let it sit overnight and you are ready for your handle. The fit should look something like this.

The wood I'm choosing is Desert Ironwood and here are bookmatched scales.

I have angled the front of the scales to better allow me to get the shape I want as well as to get the pretty burls into the handle of the finished knife. I have the tang just stuck between the scales to help get thing oriented. A little planning at this point will pay off. The drawing of the handle shape is rough and oversized, but gives me an idea of the flow I want from blade to handle.

You can see the tape that creates a hinge for the bookmatched scales. This just helps for a number of reasons, mainly to keep from getting things mixed up and the scales backwards. You also can see the slight angle of the front of the scales. They naturally oppose one another in that posititon. I'm holding the guard tight to the angled front and marking the tang's profile.

Now it's time to inlet the scales to fit the tang. Since the glue joint should be down the center of the knife, the inletting should be centered too with half of the mortise into one scale and half in the other. I taper the tang, so this means that the mortise should be deeper toward the guard progressively getting shallower toward the back. I use a small milling machine for this, but it can be done several ways, including small chisels, routing, dremel, etc.

In the above picture, I marked where my pins will be. Look in the mortised groove. I take a very small bit and drill from the inside of the groove out to enable me to find the exact pin location later. I do this on one scale, not both.

The scales are ready to be glued up to one another. I rough up the inside surface and degrease it before applying super glue. You have to be carefull, of course. Get your vise or clamps ready before hand and get things lined up as close as possible. This will make the wood grain line up as well as line up the two halves of the mortise. I pay special attention to the front that joins up with the guard. Naturally it seems, there will need to be some fine tuning of this area after glue up. Here is a picture of the front of the joined scales after the two halves have been evened up.

Now the guard and handle fits up good and the tang is good and snug with hardly any movement from side to side or up and down. When done right it wont take much epoxy at all. The handle looks ugly because it's still in block form, but I have the pin location taken care of with the small locator holes. No problem. Just glue it up.

I have a clamp that I use to hold the handle tight to the guard while it sets up. The blade/guard and the handle block has been epoxied and needs clamping. Here is the clamp I mentioned. This works well for me. This clamp has a detachable end which can be taken off and notched to accept the blade so the front of the guard will press against the jaw. With just a little pressure you can get a good joint.

Notice in the above picture that the small pin locator holes alloed some epoxy to squeeze out. That was why I put tape on the side of the handle to limit this. But I actually wanted to see the epoxy come out, since this allowed some air to vent and got he epoxy all the way down around the tang. Here the handle profile is roughed in and the sides are checked to make sure all is parallel. If not make the adjustments while in relative block form. This will allow you to drill your pin holes square with the centerline of the knife.

Using the locator hole, I drill pilot holes through the handle, tang and all. Then enlarge the holes to fit the small part of my step drill. While I'm drilling and since I have the handle generally profiled, I drill a pilot for the lanyard tube. Here the handle is piloted and the pins and tubing laid with it. Notice that I roughed up the tubing a little in the area that will be in the middle of the knife's handle. I feel like this will add some strength to the glue joint not only for the lanyard tube itself, but will lend this strength also toward holding the scales together, serving as an additional pin of sorts.

Here is the step drill. Notice the "step" will have to be just deep enough to allow the pins to screw together applying pressure to the scales and connecting through the tang. This takes a little practice, but is not too difficult.

I might mention that the pins I am using are 3/16 X 1/4 with the pilot being the 3/16 and the larger part of the pin being 1/4 inch.

To get a good idea of the depth that you want the "step", I do this.

I'm just taking note where the steps are in relation to the handle sides. There is a little play here, but not much. Get this as close as you can without going too deep. Of course if the steps are not deep enough, the pin halves wont reach and connect. Here is the handle after the pins and tube are installed.

Now the handle is ready to be shaped. I use my grinder with a rotary platten attached for some of this. It should be mentioned that rasps and files and other means can be used and should be at some stages of shaping the handle. It's just too risky to do it all on the machine.

I am almost finished with the knife. I just have to do some hand finishing here and there. Here is the handle after some work with the rotary platten.

After some hand sanding and fine tuning, here is the finished product. Photo by Chuck Ward.