Knife Handle Repair

[Hugh]

Bought a knife a couple yrs ago, paid $:65. US, plus shipping, exchange on $, and duty, it cost me $100. Well got to looking after that knife, it had never been sharpened, touch it up on the strop, and it was never used on anything but wood. Picked it up the other day, and the blade is nicked, and someone had tried to sharpen it on the grinder, the edge rolled over and the blade is heavily scratched. The handle is cracked.
Now to my question, I cleaned up the blade some, brought it back to a good edge, now to remove the handle and repair it, would someone suggest a way to safely remove the blade from the handle. Are they usually glued, the blade is loose now.
I don't know who damaged the knife. SadCORRECTION: Just now figured out who and when.

[Thomp]

If the handle is wrecked and beyond repair, if i had to do it i would duct tape the sharpened blade and whittle the old handle off...

make or find a replacement...

forcing the blade out with pliers or such could snap it off... especially if its good hardened carbon steel,
best idea is to send it to rick-in-Seattle see his pages for cost of repair at http://www.littleshavers.com/Sharpeningbymail.html he has prices for sharpening and repairs listed... just a few bucks...

i think postage will cost more than repairs if i remember his pricing

[Hi_Ho_Sliver]

thomp has the right idea with the duct tape, except I take a piece of heavy cardboard and fold it covering the cutting edge, I leave enough of the back of the knife blade exposed so that some of the duct tape will still to that, otherwise the whole thing will act as a sleeve and slip off while you are working on it, and OOPS! I wrap the whole thing a number of times with the duct tape...paranoid, maybe, cut...........nope! lolTalking

[rick-in-seattle]

If you don't wish to save the handle, it may be removed by carefully crushing the wood with a hammer.
Then the blade may be cleaned up and re-set into a new handle.

If the bonding agent was epoxy, you may be able to warm it enough to remove the blade. That takes a bit more care.

[Hugh]

Great stuff, that is the information I was looking for. I e-mailed Rick at little shavers and hope to send my knife to him for repairs. Was afraid to tackle it myself. And also added a short cut on my desk top to his site. Didn't know that someone would offer such a service. Thanks

[dryheat]

If the handle is attached with epoxy you can;
Wrap the blade with cardboard or something to protect it
Clamp the blade in a vise
Heat the handle and blade area with a heat gun
And while applying the heat pull on the handle to remove it
It takes a while and requires a temperature of around 250/350 degrees to soften the epoxy but it will release. You can usually see the epoxy start to soften and that’s when you need to pull. The vise will act as a heat sink so you have to concentrate the heat on the area where the epoxy is.

I have removed the shaft from a lot of golf clubs this way.
If you don’t have a heat gun it can be done with a propane torch but you have to be careful not to set the handle on fire by keeping the flame a distance from the handle.

Good luck, Ed