I hate soldering guards. Actually, it would be more accurate to say that I hate cleaning up and burnishing the solder joint. Have you ever finished soldering only to find one little spot where the solder didn't flow and seal the joint?

How about getting a good seal, then while cleaning up the joint, you put a scratch on the face of the guard? Then while fixing the scratch on the guard, you accidentally scratch the face of the ricasso. Ever go back and forth until you were ready to scream? Fix the ricasso -- dang! -- fix the guard, fix the ricasso, fix the guard...

Ever finished a knife that had a perfect joint, cleaned and burnished great with no scratches, then six months down the road, a little rusty pit starts to appear from hidden flux that leeched out? And you did everything you could to neutralize the flux before assembling the knife.

I've been through every one of these scenarios, plus some. It's frustrating, and I've talked to many a well known maker who grinned at the mention of this plight. The technique that I'll demonstrate today is based on a method shown to me by Jerry Fisk several years ago. It's a form of solderless guard using JB Weld to seal the joint. The technique shown here will employ a pressure fit guard with JB Weld as the sealing agent.

During this tutorial, I will throw in a few free tips along the way to keep things interesting. I'll also try to anticipate and answer any questions as we go. I hope you'll find it interesting and enlightening.

This method of fitting a guard demands good, close fits. We want everything as close as possible, with no visible gaps. I start by filing a guard stop on the back of the ricasso. This is done with a filing fixture. The fixture is hardened toolsteel. The face is hard enough to resist the agressive bite of a file. Those vertical marks you see on the fixture aren't cuts from the file. The surface was essentially polished when the file hit those areas.

For this step I first mark where I want the guard to stop, then align it in the fixture, and clamp it tightly. This is followed by filing right down to the face of the fixture. When the file looses it's bite and just skates across the face of the fixture, you know you're there. The end result is nice, flat, perfectly aligned shoulders.

If you were using an air hardening steel, you would obviously do this prior to heat treat. The blade pictured above is 5160. On carbon steels I often wait until after heat treating to file in the shoulders. I always draw the tang and ricasso areas back to spring temper with a torch after heat treating anyway. This gives incredible strength against ateral forces. It also facilitates easy filing, drilling, tapping, etc. You can use a round file instead of a flat file if desired, to create a radius at the tang/ricasso juncture. This helps avoid mechanical stress points.

Okay, let's move on to the next step. Once the shoulders are to my liking, I check the dimensions at the tang/ricasso juncture with calipers, so I'll know what size the slot in my guard needs to be.

Here I've milled the slot for my guard and am checking it with calipers. I have ever-so-slightly undersized the slot. This one will be a pressure fit guard. That means that it won't quite reach the guard stop I made in the previous step. I will have to gently tap it down to rest against the stop with a seating tool.

You may have noticed that all I have in the mill is a rectangular piece of nickel silver. I don't shape the guard until after I've made the slot and have a good fit. That way, if I mess up the slot, I haven't wasted a lot of time.

By the way, if you don't have a milling machine, you can still get very close fits. Drill several holes in a line where your slot will be. Align the guard in the filing fixture where one side of the slot is to terminate, and file right down to the fixture. Flip the guard over and do the same thing for the other side of the slot. I did it this way for years.

Now we're ready to do a dry fit and see how well things flush up. Hopefully, I've measured properly and there won't be any unsightly gaps at the joint.

This is a dry fit test. Slide the guard up the tang until it stops. Remember, this one is pressure fit and hangs before it hits the guard stop I made. That's where my ultra-sophisticated seating tool comes in. It's nothing but a foot long block of maple with a slot cut in it. The slot in the seating tool is placed over the tang and butted up against the back of the guard. Then I gently tap until the guard rests flush against the guard stop. You can use any hardwood for this tool. I've heard of some people using pipe. I like wood because there's not much chance of dinging up the back of the guard.

Okay, now that we've got it seated, let's remove the blade from the vise and see how well everything fits.

This isn't too bad. There are no glaring gaps and everything mates up pretty nicely. I see that there are some small burrs around the slot that need to be addressed. A couple of swipes with some 600 grit paper around a piece of steel will fix it up just fine.

Now that I know I have a fairly successful fit, I'll remove the guard and rough out the shape. The next time you see that chunk of nickel silver it will actually look like a guard. It's also time to move on to the JB Weld we'll be using to seal the joint.

The guard and finger groove have been been roughed out and it's time to seal everything up. We want a clean surface for our seal. I cleaned the guard, the slot, the back of the ricasso area, and the tang with hot soapy water, then rinsed well and dried. You can also clean and degrease everything with acetone, ammonia, or isopropyl (rubbing) alcohol.

A small quantity of JB Weld was mixed up and spread on the back of the ricasso, around the tang, and in the guard slot with a Popcicle stick. Notice that I have covered the blade with masking tape to keep the finish clean. Now we're ready to put it all together.

The guard has been affixed and we have a nice bead all the way around the joint. You don't have to put as much of the JB Weld as I did, because this is after all, a tight fit. I just wanted to be sure that you could clearly see the bead, and the cleanup in a later step.

We are going walk away for a while now and allow the JB Weld to begin curing. The amount of time seems to vary according to temperature, humidity, etc. What I do is check the consistency periodically with a toothpick. I am looking for a firm rubber consistency. Around my shop, it's generally about 45 minutes to an hour before it's ready.

But check it frequently in your shop. Whatever you do, don't let this stuff fully cure before you do the cleanup step! JB Weld is tough stuff. It can be drilled, threaded, and filed. There are reports that it has been used to repair cracked engine blocks. So keep an eye on, okay?

While we're waiting for the JB Weld to set up a bit, let's take a look at what we'll be using to clean up the joint. Notice, no gravers or sandpaper. Our entire set of "tools" is a can of WD-40, a bit of bathroom tissue (yes toilet paper), and the same Popcicle stick we used to apply the JB Weld. That's it.

I merely clipped off the part of our stick that had been used. Notice that I made a diagonal cut. You'll see why in the next step.

While we're here, you may have noticed the round plastic disk with some JB Weld on it. That is a plastic coffee can lid. This is what I use to mix my epoxy and my JB Weld. The stuff won't permanantly stick to this type of plastic, so I can use them many times. After the epoxy or JB Weld has fully cured, all you have to do is bend the plastic. Whatever is stuck to it will pop off. Any sticky residue can be removed with acetone.

Alright. The JB Weld has setup to a hard rubbery consistency. Let's go clean up that joint.

To continue this tutorial click here.
.