Thread: centering blade in scales

Just got done putting 6 blades in some scales i made, out of red oak, cherry, walnut, and cocobola,
everything came out nice, the question i have is some of the blades are not perfectly centered. not hitting the scales just favoring one side or the other, i know that you peen the pin at the blade end to move the blade, the question is which side of the blade do you peen?
The blades i used are wade and butcher 3/4" notch point in the walnut,another wande and butcher 3/4" notch point, no name 3/4" notch point in cocobola, Thompson 3/4 French point in cocobola, and Washington (somthing) in shetfield steel for the cherry.
when i get pics ill post them,
any advice would be greatly appreciated
Mike (Grottolord)

If everything is squared up in the making of the scales, there is a good chance that the angle of the pivote is a result of the hole in the tang. I have found that adding brass tubing, through the tang hole, for the pin to pass thought, will only accent this angle and make it worse! The reason you only see a slight angle with the pin alone, is that there is room for the pin to angle through (that is, if the pin is straight). You can either redrill the tang-hole (difficult and not recommended) or, perhaps compensate the angle with small washers on one side. But in my opinion, if it does not cut into the scales, and is not touching the edge, just be carful and live with it!

I found putting washers on the inside of the scales made it so I couldn't tighten the blade. I'm with cutz, just live with it. Every set of scales I've made have had things slightly "wrong" with them that I've had to live with.

If the blade is closing to the right then peen on that side and vice versa.


Hope this helps,

Mike, you have to make sure the scales are perfectly flat. If the are cupped, bent or bellied in the center, your going to have a problem. If this is the problem, then this might work.

Since they are wood, just dampen them, and put 1 scale between 2 peices of hardwood about 2 inches wide. Then clamp the 2 peices of wood together with the scale in the middle. Leave it clamped for a couple of days.

See if it works.

No matter how much experience you have making scales, this problem rears it's annoying head every once in a while.

When I use washers at the pivot pins and a CA finish, the solution I usually use is to take one of those small dremel burrs, and shave off a little of the area around the pivot pin hole on the inside of the scales. I only sand off the side of the hole that's needed so that the washer has a little area to sit in on one side. Unless I come up against some razor that really doesn't like to sit straight, this usually works just fine. The other alternative is to do the opposite, and add just a tiny drop of CA to one side of the pivot hole, instead of sanding it down. This is obviously what you'll want to do if you don't use a CA finish so you're not digging into the wood. If you're using an oil/wax finish, be sure to sand away abit of the surface so that the CA can bond to the wood. Putting CA on anything oily just isn't good.