Henry Rifle Forums

Someone's Birthday is coming up this month, and she had picked out the synthetic scales on the last trip to Jantz. Got busy polishing the brass bolsters and glued/pinned them in place and applied the clamps.


After they had set, and the clamps came off, you can see the pins. I had used a reamer to open the holes so peening would widen the top of the pin and seat it in the bolster. I'm trying to learn to peen the pins so well they completely disappear.

The next step is to grind the pins down to about a 1/16" of an inch on both sides, then using the ball peen hammer and my mini anvil, peen them down as close to flush as you can. This spreads the brass pins into the holes and helps insure the bolsters won't loosen even if the epoxy fails.


Carefully, cooling often by dipping the blank in water, I ground both sides flush on a 400 grit belt.

Over two or three sessions in the shop, I polished the mounted bolster by hand, using a pink rubber eraser wrapped in various grits of sandpaper, working my way up to 1,000 grit. A small amount of dawn is applied, a spritz of water, and buff lightly with each grit to finally remove the swirls from the previous grit.


These are the scales Miss Tina chose, I think when they are properly mounted and shaped they will Rock.

Today's session was all about cutting the slots in the top of the bolster to start matching the slots in the spine.

I started by using a jewelers saw to cut a centered groove above each slot, right down to the bottom of the groove in the spine.

Then I used a triangle file to widen that groove.

Then a fine cutting bit in the pencil dremel to cut a channel across the brass to start matching the slots.

Dressed it a bit more with a thin file. Still looking rough.


Used a flat fine diamond file to bring the brass down even with the stainless spine, using tight circular motion in the last phases to limit the amount of final sanding I'd need. Then working with the rubber eraser and 400, 600, and 1000 grit paper I worked to remove all the swirls. This is NOT the final polish, but a good start. There is a lot of rounding and shaping left to do.

The channels still need more shaping and of course we'll roll the edges when we shape the handle after the scales are mounted. Plenty of work to be done. We are just getting started.

Those pins sure disappeared, great job on that.
Do you add a slight chamber or bevel or countersink (not sure proper word) on each side so the peened pins lock in place?

rickhem wrote: ↑

Sun Aug 18, 2024 8:30 am

Those pins sure disappeared, great job on that.
Do you add a slight chamber or bevel or countersink (not sure proper word) on each side so the peened pins lock in place?

As I mentioned earlier, and you can see in one of the pics, I used a long reamer to cut a bevel in each hole for exactly that purpose. If I remember, I'll take a picture of the reamer kit and the jeweler's saw when I head out to the shop this morning. Some of these tools are rather interesting themselves.

Looks great BOM, and a very happy birthday to Tina when the day arrives. She is going to love that knife and those grips are (will be) beautiful.

Thanks Hatch, I'm hoping I'll be able to duplicate the shine after I shape the grips to the knife blank. Roughing up the back of the blanks they turn dull quickly, it'll be a challenge.

As promised, let's look at some of the specialty tools.

This is the jeweler's saw and a package of the various blades. The ruler is in the pic for size and if you can see the blades, this is NOT a saw you can muscle, the blades will snap in a heartbeat. However, the top bar on the saw will collapse on itself and lock in place. This will allow you to take half a blade and reinsert it into the bow, and continue to use both halves.


Next up is the jeweler's diamond file set. This refers to the diamond chips embedded in the files not the shape of the files. They cut very well on the hardened steel of the knife blanks. Tooling the blade spines and shaping some of the bolsters and pommels would be very difficult without them. This mid range set wasn't too expensive and contains ten files. There is a five file set that was three times as expensive, but supposedly cuts SO much better. I had to pass.


I have mentioned my Mini Anvil in several posts. It really is a mini-anvil as you can see. I bought it specifically to use for setting pins, and peening them down into the bolsters or driving them into the scales. There is also a technique where you can trim them to within a 1/16" of the scales, then round the edges with the ball peen, and polish. I haven't gotten around to learning that yet. Perhaps I'll do that on a scrap piece to learn it.


This is my high end custom sanding block for working metals to a high sheen, with sandpaper and dawn dishwashing liquid. Hard to find, though cvs, dollar stores, office max... well, you get the drift.


I have a few others, if I mention something and it's not shown and someone wants to see it, or have it explained, speak up. I'm always happy to share.