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The quality of the guard to blade fit is one of the
first places to look when evaluating the work-
manship on custom knives. With many makers
having milling machines and surface grinders, it
has become almost routine to see workmanship
that was rare just a decade ago.

While it takes some practice, obtaining a preci-
sion fit, using simple tools, is not all that diffi-
cult. It is more a matter of knowing what to do,
and where to look. Below I will outline the steps
I use when I don’t have a milling machine avail-
able.

1. Prepare the blade. Use a mi-

crometer to check where the
guard will fit, is flat, and the
same thickness top to bottom.
Cut the shoulders using the
homemade file guide shown in
figure 1. Be sure to radius
where the blade meets the tang,
otherwise stress cracks can
form here during heat-treating.
The tang should taper slightly
from the guard towards the back.
The thickest part of the blade
should be right where the front
of the guard will be. See Figure
1a. Then, heat-treat the blade

Tips From the Shop

Fitting a Guard with Simple Tools

By Tim Zowada

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2. Flatten and finish the guard material.
Take the front face of the future guard to
a 400-grit finish. Get it as flat as you
can. A piece of glass or marble with
sandpaper on top works great. Paint the
front face of the guard with layout blue.

3. Lay out borderlines. Scribe a
centerline down the middle. Use a sharp
scribe and push hard. You want to make
a groove to help center the drilled holes
later. Mark the top and bottom limits of

the tang. Figure 2.

4. Choose your drill bit. The blade

here is 0.178” thick. Use a drill
bit that is 0.010” smaller. So here
it would be a #19 at 0.166”. Be
sure to measure your drill bit.
Don’t believe what it says on it.

5. Lay out drill holes. Lay the drill

bit down on the guard material and
mark the centers. Have the edges
of the future holes just touching.
Center punch the hole locations by
letting the center punch “snap” in
to the scribed groove made ear-
lier. You drag the punch sideways
until it sort of falls in to the groove.
Figure 3.

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6. Drill Holes. Start with a drill bit

that is about 0.020” smaller than
your finished hole diameter. Usu-
ally I will use a drill countersink,
because they are more rigid and
don’t flex. Figure 4.

7. Connect the holes. Use a chain saw

file to knock out the webs between
the holes.

8. File out the slot. Using a small flat file carefully file
out the slot. You want the slot to flare slightly towards
the back of the guard. The “secret” here is that you only
have to fit the very front of the guard! The back will be
filled with glue or solder.
Watch the drill holes. With the flaring towards the back
of the guard, the drill holes will start to look like little
crescent shapes and move toward the front of the guard.
See figure 5. This will help you see if you are filing
evenly. (You will also see if your holes were drilled
straight! Oops.) Stop filing when the drill holes disap-
pear. You are now

Fig 5

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0.010” undersize. Fig 5a. Now it is time to try the fit. Keep
fitting and filing until the guard is about 1/8” from hitting the
shoulders.

9.

Drive on with squashed pipe tool.

Don’t be afraid to smack it.

10. Re-flatten the front of the guard. Us-
ing a flat surface and 400grit sandpaper.
Sand off any bumps or dents that have
formed. Get rid of that scribed centerline
too.
11. Mark the top and bottom limits of the
blade. We will be engraving out little de-
pressions for the shoulders of the blade to
fit in to. Do this gently, we will be sand

Figure 6

Figure 6a

Fig 6a

Fig 5a

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ing off these lines later.

12. Engrave out front of guard under

blade shoulders. Fig 7. Using a
homemade engraving tool, cut
about 0.005” deep. Stay 0.005”
away from the scribed lines. These
will be defined when the guard is
driven on a second time.

13. Drive the guard on again. This is

to set the depressions for the shoul-
ders of the blade.

14. Sand front face to 600-grit. This

just cleans everything up.

(Fig 7a)

15. Contour to final shape.

Learn on something soft and easy to file.
Brass, copper and nickel silver are all good.
If you file a little too much, you can squish
the slot back down using a heavy vice.

There. That’s it. The explanation is lengthy,
but it’s really not that bad. With practice you
can get one done in about twenty minutes. If
the fit is good capillary action will pull your
epoxy up through any minor gaps, making a
watertight fit. You can also use solder to seal
the joint. But, that is a topic for another ar-
ticle.

Tim Zowada

Fig 7

Fig 7a

Tim Zowada is available at
Knifeforums.com answer questions
you may have at the Bladesmiths
forum.
his web page is
http://www.tzknives.com/