Desert Iron Wood and pins(cracking)

[snorkel]

Anyone have any tips for peening brass pins in Desert Ironwood scales?
I recently put some on a LB7 and has some issues with it cracking on the small 3/32 pins.
Luckily I glued the scales on with Sumo glue before I peened the pins, so you can't really see the small cracks.

Thanks,

Snorkel

[orvet]

Tony,
The only thing I can suggest is don't peen quite as hard and maybe drill your holes 0.003" to 0.005" oversize.
Desert Ironwood can be brittle especially if it is real dry.

It takes a while to develop the right touch when peening.
I think everyone who repairs, customizes or makes knifes has cracked a set of scales or three when learning.
It is just part of the process. You have to make the mistakes to learn what the right touch feels like.

Eventually you learn when it feels right and you stop cracking scales.
Don't feel bad, as many as I have done I just chipped a beautiful set of bone scales recently with a spinner.
Somehow I caught the bone with the spinner and removed a big chip out of the middle of the bone, right above the pin.
It happens.

Dale

[muskrat man]

I've been doing this on 4 years now and I still ocasionally crack or chip a set of handles. It happens. wood and bone are natural materials with internal stress, weak spots and fractures that cannot be seen from the surface, sometimes you get in a rush, and sometimes when it happens you just like "WTF!?" everything seems to be all hunkey dorey and all of a sudden you hear that sickening crack or pop. Always drill holes a little oversize (as dale mentioned) or you can even turn your pin down slightly. Learn when to stop peening, and learn how hard to hit it, where to hit it and with what weight hammer to hit it. I used to peen scale pins with a ball peen, I now use a cross peen that must weigh 1/3 of what the ball peen does! no substitute for first hand experience/trial and error too!

[snorkel]

Thanks guys,
I am going to try another one and instead of 4 pins only do the 3.
I use a very light 4 or 6 oz I believe ball pein and a 5 oz tack hammer.

I did bore the holes oversize, but not in a cone shape, next time I am going to use a tapered reamer (which I did not have at the time) and see if it makes a difference.