Show your mods!

[Chris_H]

Absolutely amazing scale mod/replacement with the jigged bone that you did on the Squeak, Ted!

[Ned]

I made some time to spend in the shop this weekend and finished up two mods that have been sitting on my bench for a while. The first is a Squeak modified with jigged bone scales. This is only my second or third time to use jigged bone - it is not my favorite material to work with. It tends to chip out, the dye gets all over the place until it wears down, and the smell when you cut or drill it is really bad. But I've always had a soft spot for jigged bone ever since my Grandad got me into knives almost 50 years ago. He was a Case man, and this was his favorite scale material. Nothing says "traditional" quite like dyed jigged bone...

Anyway, this is a set of bargain basement scales from Culpepper. I wanted to try it out before investing in some more expensive slabs. I drilled and counterbored these with my drill press and cut them out using my bandsaw (pee-ew!). I then contoured and sanded them down to 1500 grit. The Squeak doesn't have any washers (they are built into the FRN scales) and I think I'll need to get some phosphor bronze washers for the next time I break it down. That would make the action silky smooth.

TedP

This is so COOL! I love the Squeak. I carry mine often and this just looks wonderful. I'll bet that it will be super slick with the new washers..

[Ned]

Very Impressive Military RoBo!

[RoBoTech]

Very Impressive Military RoBo!

thank you, Sir!

[Spydersense]

Here's my second weekend project - a UKPK rescaled in Arizona Ironwood. These scales took some time to get prepped. When I resawed the slabs off a larger block, it exposed a lot of hairline cracks and small checks. So I drilled and counterbored the holes, cut out the scales, and roughly contoured and sanded them down to 120 grit. Then I removed the scales from the knife and coated them with thin CA glue. This filled the cracks and I sanded the CA off and polished the scales out to 1200 grit. It was topped with Ren Wax for the final finish.

TedP

Gorgeous woodwork Ted!

[MadRookie]

Simply gorgeous Ted!

You got talent.

:)

[Ned]

This is my first attempt at a knife modification. I just acid etched the pattern and added a small lanyard made from one of my Infantry cords...

[ATTACH]23496[/ATTACH]

[ATTACH]23497[/ATTACH]

Pretty amateurish I'll admit but it was a fun project.

[xceptnl]

This is my first attempt at a knife modification. I just acid etched the pattern and added a small lanyard made from one of my Infantry cords...

[ATTACH]23496[/ATTACH]

[ATTACH]23497[/ATTACH]

Pretty amateurish I'll admit but it was a fun project.

It looks consistent. A great start and nice job

[Ned]

Thank you..

[bullmib]

Wise people of knifemodification. I have been thinking of making the handle of a Pingo longer somehow. does anybody have experience in that direction, and know how to go about it. I like the design of the blade but would like to have a longer handle when I buy the knife.

[Donut]

The simplest lengthening I've seen is adding a small lanyard with a knot at the end.

A lot of people do this with Ladybugs. Check out this web page: http://www.good-kit.com/public-knife/

The Pingo doesn't have a real lanyard hole, but you can attach it to the clip.

[Jazz]

This is my first attempt at a knife modification. I just acid etched the pattern and added a small lanyard made from one of my Infantry cords...

[ATTACH]23496[/ATTACH]

[ATTACH]23497[/ATTACH]

Pretty amateurish I'll admit but it was a fun project.

It's really cool, if you ask me. :cool:

[Evil D]

Wise people of knifemodification. I have been thinking of making the handle of a Pingo longer somehow. does anybody have experience in that direction, and know how to go about it. I like the design of the blade but would like to have a longer handle when I buy the knife.

You may want to make a thread about this, there are several people here who have made new handles for the Pingo, and as long as the pivot is the same and the blade has enough area to close into, you could make the rest of the handle any shape or size you wanted.

[bullmib]

Thank you Donut and Evil D, I was thinking kind of like you Evil D. But also had blade and handle ratio in mind. I just have to get the knife home and go ti work with it.

Kind regards

Mikael

[phillipsted]

Making a larger handle wouldn't be much of a problem. The Pingo is ridiculously easy to modify - it has just three bolts and no liners. The only issue I see is that you might want to add one more bolt at the end of the new scale to provide stability. Personally, it would probably be best to build a new backspacer that would fill the gap from the existing backspacer to the end of the new scales. This new bolt would then anchor the new backspacer in place. You could make this new backspacer out of Moonglow or something cool...

You would also want to make the new scales out of material that is pretty strong and rigid. Since the Pingo has no liners, you need the strength. Soft unstabilized woods wouldn't work. Harder, denser woods like rosewood, lignum vitae, cocobolo, blackwood, ironwood, etc., would be good choices.

Just thinking out loud here...

TedP

[phillipsted]

OK, here is one that may not be to everyone's taste. This is a UKPK which has been rebuilt with a set of scales made out of Pink Ivory wood. I've been wanting to try this wood for a long time. The pieces I'd looked at were either vibrant pink (which I didn't want...) or were insanely expensive - or both. I wanted a sample that had some sapwood and some heartwood to give it a bit of variegation. Pink Ivory is fantastic to work with. It has a very tight, fine grain and is hard and dense.

I decided to leave the scales thick - they started life as 0.25" slabs, about twice as thick as stock UKPK scales. After flattening and contouring, the scales were still about 0.18" thick. I like the feel of the knife in-hand, it is round and solid, with enough contour to make it more ergonomic than an Opinel.

Pink Ivory doesn't need a whole lot of finishing because of its density. I sanded the scales out to 1200 grit then topped it with a coat of Odie's Oil (a mixture of tung oil and wax). I left this to cure overnight, wiped the excess off after 24 hours, then left the scales to harden up for another 72 hours.

TedP

[3rdGenRigger]

Looks awesome!

[i am travvy]

i agree! that looks great phillipsted!

[Therealtwitch]

Dyed my southard cause everything is cooler in camo.

[Officer Gigglez]

Dyed my southard cause everything is cooler in camo.

What southard? I only see a blade floating and your hand...