Guard soldering tip
I have been looking around on the site for a while now, thanks for all the ideas and answered questions I did not have to ask. I'm not new to knife making, but have just gotten serious with it in the past 3 years. Thank you everyone, have a good New Year.
Here is a thing I have found works well, but have not seen mentioned before. Just might be to simple to mention but here is my 2 cents worth.
When I have soldered guards in the past, heat creeping up into the edge was a concern. I had an old copper drainpipe lying around that had one end partially flattened. I flattened out the entire 12" length and ground one side so it was open on one side. Then cleaned/rounded off the edges with sandpaper and the buffer for a smooth no mar surface. When you have the blade tang clamped in the vice ready to do the guard soldering, slip the flattened copper pipe over the edge of the blade from ricasso to tip. Clamp it around a 1/2" above the shoulder area. Use one of the C clamps with the swivel on the end of the clamp screw, so you have good positive contact between the blade and copper. Move the copper pipe until it is has covered the edge up to the bevel line or 1/3 way on a flat grind. For a convex grind I use two C clamps. Clamp the copper in place and soldier away. The copper conducts the heat away from the edge and because the copper is so thin the heat dissipates before it can harm a good temper job.
This also works for drawing the blade spine. I just slip the blade edge into the flattened copper pipe and clamp it in the vice, leaving about 1/2" of the copper above the vice jaws. With the blade edge below the top of the vice jaws. Then heat the spine up with the torch, remembering to be careful about the tip. I start on the tang end first and work my way forward. I let the color creep to about 1/2" above the top of the copper and I have had very good results in flex tests.
This will take a bit of experimenting to get things the way you want them, but it works great for me and no mess to clean off as with the heat paste. Just a cheap easy heat sink. Practice on an old junk blade first; before you try it out on a good blade. Remember the heat is still there so go easy with the torch
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