Thread: Knifemaking photo-essay (4) Soldering the guard

The previous post in this series was: https://www.nzhuntingandshooting.co....-guard-105071/

Soldering on the guard.

Once I’ve prepared the brass guard, I wash the knife blank in hot soapy water (dishwash detergent), rinse it with hot water, and dry it with a towel. I then wipe the surfaces to be soldered with a meths-soaked tissue, and allow the blank to dry.

1) How NOT to set up the soldering job. I use this tool when I solder the guards onto inletted half-tang knife blanks. The stainless screw, indicated by the pink arrow, locks the tool onto the tang. The screw below it presses the guard against the face of the recess in the blank. However, this tool doesn’t positively locate the bottom of the guard slot against the bottom of the recess in the blank. The result can be an unsightly steel-solder-brass junction or, at worst, there can be a void between the steel and the brass.

2) How I set up the soldering job with a custom-ground clamp. The pointed end on the right contacts the steel spine, and the blunt end on the left pushes the bottom of the guard slot up against the bottom of the recess in the steel. Once clamped, check up against the light to ensure the front face of the guard is contacting the front of the recess in the steel.

3) The custom clamp is fixed to a flat surface, and the guard is ready to be soldered.

4) I flux the joint thoroughly with zinc chloride flux, then solder it using lead-free solder. Make sure solder is applied all around the joint. I also check underneath to ascertain that solder is oozing out and that the joint has been completely penetrated.

Once the soldered joint is cool enough to touch, I plunge the assembly, clamp and all, into a bucket of water. Then, to remove any remaining (extremely corrosive) zinc chloride, I wash the blank thoroughly with hot soapy water, rinse it with hot water, and dry it with a towel.

5) and 6) Two front views of the soldered joint.

7) Solder has oozed out the back of the joint.