Hammer Brand Fishing Knife (Part 1)

[Jeffinn]

At some point I purchased a Hammer Brand fishing knife;

I didn't know at the time that they used the shell style handle construction. I pulled it out a few days ago and decided to disassemble it. It was a little rusty but not too bad considering its intended use;

Since I wanted to install some new bone scales I decided to recreate the knife without the shell handles. This meant that I was going to have to make some solid nickle silver bolsters. I purchased some nickel silver bar stock from Jantz:

Then I cut the appropriate size pieces for the upper and lower bolsters:

Once that was done I started the process of soldering the bolsters to the liners. I hammered the little raised portion out (where the original handle connected to the liner), sanded the liners and got them ready for soldering. The liners looked like brass but the were actually stamped steel with a gold/bronze coloring;

After all of the bolsters were soldered in place it was time for some preliminary grinding to get the nickel silver pieces formed to the liners;

They look good except one of the lower bolsters is slightly longer than the other (I temporarily pinned the liners together so I could get the bolsters looking the same);

Some judicious filing work and the bolsters are pretty much equal;

Next up, I'll start shaping the bolsters and get the bone handles ready for installation. Stay tuned!

[royal0014]

Impressive work thus far

[doglegg]

You are fun Jeffinn. Love to watch the progress.

[orvet]

It looks great Jeff, my only comment is that it's going to be a bit heavy with 1/8 inch bolsters.
However, I did the same thing myself on the first couple shell handles that I converted to solid handle knives.
Sometimes I like the feel of a heavy solid knife in my hand, but most of the time if it's in my pocket or on my belt the weight makes it hard to keep my pants up. I look like some big-city punk my pants down around my knees! So I had to switch to suspenders!

When you get done with those heavy bolsters, that knife is going to be practically bulletproof. You're not going to get wobble in that blade unless you're using the knife is a tire iron! Those heavy bolsters make a awesome solid knife! Great job so far can't wait to see it finished!

[OLDE CUTLER]

Coming along nicely Jeff!

[Jeffinn]

One thing I’ve learned so far is that the belt grinder will actually heat up the bolsters enough to melt the solder (at least when grinding with 120 grit). Silver solder melts at about 400 degrees so it doesn’t take a lot to get it flowing. A small container of cold water next to the grinder to dip the bolsters in while grinding and a softer touch solved that problem.
I guess a heavier grit might have cut quicker and with a little less heat but 120 grit was the coarsest I had at the time (made a mental note to order a few coarser grit belts).
I’ve been wanting to do one of these conversions for quite awhile and I’m pretty pleased with the way it’s going so far.
Thanks everyone for all of the positive comments!

[Jeffinn]

“Sometimes I like the feel of a heavy solid knife in my hand, but most of the time if it's in my pocket or on my belt the weight makes it hard to keep my pants up. I look like some big-city punk my pants down around my knees! So I had to switch to suspenders!”
LOL! For every problem there’s a logical solution.