Knight Owl Forge
Bladesmith
- Joined
- Mar 14, 2017
- Messages
- 75
Hey fellow knife makers,
I personally never use lanyards... they generally just get in my way and I haven't ever lost grip on a knife while using it. That said, it is always nice to have the option to use one when the situation demands it. Therefore, I have been looking at various hidden lanyard loop designs. I have seen a couple different methods, some very similar to what I have done. The thing I like about the method I am sorting out is that it is relatively fast.
Step 1: Make the hole for the lanyard in the back of the tang. Be mindful of your handle shape and where it may fit best... I probably could have made this higher up on the butt because my handles have egg shaped cross section and is thicker on the top of the handle.
Step 2: Drill out the back of the scales with them pinned together. I have them clamped up for this photo, but it is best to have them pinned together so everything stays aligned. I also pre-shaped my scales so the back didn't have much overlap. This makes lining things up easier.
Step 2 Continued: Here is the scales after drilling and unpinning. I kind of messed up a bit here... I flattened the inside of my scales after drilling the hole, so the hole got kind of wonky. I highly recommend making the inside of your scales flat before drilling.
Step 3: I didn't have regular PJ sitting around so I bust out the bag balm... Apply some PJ (or bag balm) to the parts of the lanyard hole and loop that you don't want epoxy settling in. When I glued up the knife, I waited until the epoxy got to a booger consistency and then picked it out with a dental pick. The bag balm made it easy to get the epoxy out and it gave me a clean hole afterwards.
Step 4: Glue and shape your scales as you normally would, except for being mindful of the lanyard hole and where it is in your scales. You don't want to shape your scales too much and hit the hole from the outside. You want to leave enough wood around the hole that it is structurally secure. At this point, if your hole is lopsided, you can use needle files to even things out... Hopefully if you do the steps right, there shouldn't be much work to do. You can also file the loop a bit to get the 90 deg edge not so sharp.
Step 5: Insert your lanyard and Bob's your uncle!
Step 6: Enjoy!
Let me know what you think or if there are any ways to make this technique quicker and easier... Thanks for looking!
Enzlow
I personally never use lanyards... they generally just get in my way and I haven't ever lost grip on a knife while using it. That said, it is always nice to have the option to use one when the situation demands it. Therefore, I have been looking at various hidden lanyard loop designs. I have seen a couple different methods, some very similar to what I have done. The thing I like about the method I am sorting out is that it is relatively fast.
Step 1: Make the hole for the lanyard in the back of the tang. Be mindful of your handle shape and where it may fit best... I probably could have made this higher up on the butt because my handles have egg shaped cross section and is thicker on the top of the handle.
Step 2: Drill out the back of the scales with them pinned together. I have them clamped up for this photo, but it is best to have them pinned together so everything stays aligned. I also pre-shaped my scales so the back didn't have much overlap. This makes lining things up easier.
Step 2 Continued: Here is the scales after drilling and unpinning. I kind of messed up a bit here... I flattened the inside of my scales after drilling the hole, so the hole got kind of wonky. I highly recommend making the inside of your scales flat before drilling.
Step 3: I didn't have regular PJ sitting around so I bust out the bag balm... Apply some PJ (or bag balm) to the parts of the lanyard hole and loop that you don't want epoxy settling in. When I glued up the knife, I waited until the epoxy got to a booger consistency and then picked it out with a dental pick. The bag balm made it easy to get the epoxy out and it gave me a clean hole afterwards.
Step 4: Glue and shape your scales as you normally would, except for being mindful of the lanyard hole and where it is in your scales. You don't want to shape your scales too much and hit the hole from the outside. You want to leave enough wood around the hole that it is structurally secure. At this point, if your hole is lopsided, you can use needle files to even things out... Hopefully if you do the steps right, there shouldn't be much work to do. You can also file the loop a bit to get the 90 deg edge not so sharp.
Step 5: Insert your lanyard and Bob's your uncle!
Step 6: Enjoy!
Let me know what you think or if there are any ways to make this technique quicker and easier... Thanks for looking!
Enzlow
