After using the knife for a while I came to the
conclusion that for me having the clip was of no use and just got in the way.
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| Knife With Clip |
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| Knife Minus Clip |
First thought was to just put the screws back in as
placeholders but that did not work as they bottomed out and were not all the
way in leaving a gap between the screw head and the bolster. Next thought was to add something in it’s
place as a decorative element like brass or wood accent. The wood did not seem like a good idea as it
would have been too thin and the aesthetics didn’t work. The brass option was not really practical
since that would have a brass piece held on with chrome screws, not a good
visual combination. In the end I decided
to try and shorten the screws so they would fully seat without bottoming out in
the hole.
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| Clip & Mounting Screws |
The problem with that is the screws are really, really
tiny. The overall length of the screw is
only .156 inches, slightly less than 5/32” and the threaded part is shorter
still.
The question is how to shorten them grinding, filing or
maybe cutting and more important how would I hold that little screw? There was no way I could just hold it by hand
and work on it. If I tried to use a pair
of pliers or put in in a vice I was not sure that would hold it securely but
was quite sure that it would chew up the screw head and ruin it. What I ended up doing was to use the clip as
a holder since it already had a hole that just fit the screw. I then held the screw in place with my finger
and gently removed material with a slow speed grinder. The key here is slowly and gently, there are
a few reasons why. First, the screw is
small and I need to closely monitor how much material I was grinding away. Second, the tip of my finger is awfully close
to the grinding wheel and if I slipped I did not want to grind the end of my
finger off. Third and what is most
apparent when I was working the screw is grinding a piece of steel generates a
fair amount of heat. Since steel is a
pretty good conductor of heat and the tip of my finger is close to the heat
source it’s really easy to burn the heck out of your finger.
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| Grinding Screws Down |
Now if you have ever cut, filed or ground a threaded
screw one thing that’s for sure is without some type of cleanup the threads
will be messed up when done and won’t cleanly start. I really did not want to cross thread the
screws trying to force them in and mess up the threaded holes in the
knife. My usual fix is to put a nut or
threading die on the threaded part above the cut then after the cut is made run
that item off to clean up and reform the threads. Since neither of those methods were an option
here I needed to do something else. I
decided to try grinding a very slight cone on the screw hoping that would
provide for a gradual introduction of the threads on the screw into the
hole. Here is the setup, I used the clip
to hold the screw in place at an angle to the grinding wheel and the star
driver that fit the screws to turn the screw to create the slight cone.
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| Grinding Cone to Screw End |
There are three screws holding the clip in place and
while I could have shortened them I was reluctant to do that for a couple of
reasons. First, if later on I wanted to
put the clip back on I needed the original screws. Second, if grinding them down did not work I
did not have a backup plan. As luck
would have it the knife kit had 4 screws for holding the wood handles on. Because I used epoxy to mount the handles and
not screws I could use them. That kept
the originals safe plus gave me one extra screw to use for testing. Here are the screws; the one on the left for
holding the handles on and is what I started my grinding with, the one in the
middle is the original screw to hold the clip on which I will keep in reserve
and the one on the right is the finished short screw ready to install.
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| Knife Screws |
I don’t know if it was the light touch grinding or the
cone or just luck but all three screws started and threaded into the holes
perfectly. Now with the clip off I am
happier with the using knife and think aesthetically it is a cleaner
piece. However, if I change my mind I
still have the clip and the original screws I can use to put it back on.
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| Finished |
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