Ignoramus24925 wrote:

On 2010-08-30, Pete C. wrote:

Ignoramus4078 wrote:

I did something that took quite a bit of effort (since I had to figure
out a few things).

My FIL has a knife without a handle. Asked me to make a handle. The
way I chose to do it, was to make a handle out of two symmetrical
halves, so that a profile of the tang is removed from both
halves. They would "close around the tang" and mate together.

The tang is a little curvy, and I wanted to replicate its shape, both
for the heck of it and for snug fit.

I measured the profile every 1/4 inch, using a electronic edge finder
as a probe, kind of. (I do have a probe, but have not had a chance to
hook it up, more on this later). Then coded it in G code. For the
other half, I had to invert the coordinates, so as to get a mirror
image.

The bottom line is that after a few mistakes as usual, the halves
aligned perfectly and I could press fit the tang between them. Then I
used some EDM tubing to make two makeshift rivets.

Considering that my FIL abuses this knife, I will also add a few
screws to hold the halves together. These rivets would not "do
it".

Alternatively, I may weld them together around the perimeter.

i

A flatbed scanner would do a nice job capturing the tang shape (with a
ruler in the scan for scale) so you could pull it into your CAD software
as a background image to trace over.

Well, what I should really do, is to learn to use my probe and install
a audio jack outlet for mine.

i

Probe is fine for complex 3D surfaces, but a flatbed scanner is far
faster for 2D stuff that will fit on the flatbed.