|
Post by plantguy90 on May 23, 2014 3:20:12 GMT
Ok, its my first sword, and I've already taken a hammer to it. But in my defense, I thought one of the reasons to buy a real sword was to get a real full tang. After seeing the review, and pics of how another member took his off to get at the grips and the pic of the partial stub - welded tang, got rather deflated. The tang is about 2-2.5 in long and welded to a metal piece that serves as the full tang, then its sandwiched by a grip on each side and held by brass pin, only 1 of which is in the original sword metal tang. Now, it looks like a solid design, BUT to me, this puts the Munetoshi Tac-Wak into the category of sword-like object, and NOT a real sword, maybe I'm wrong, I dunno. So I took a punch and hammer and proceeded to bang on the pin a bit, and all I managed to do was scratch up the pin and the grip, but the pin didn't pop out, maybe it moved a little since that pin is now a bit offset but couldn't get it to go any farther. So any guides or references or advice would be appreciated.
|
|
Mikeeman
Member
Small Business Operator
Posts: 2,904
|
Post by Mikeeman on May 24, 2014 3:36:18 GMT
Pretty sure the grip on that particular sword isn't meant to be removed. If I were to guess, I'd say it's epoxied on.
|
|
|
Post by plantguy90 on May 25, 2014 6:33:28 GMT
Probably going to drill the pins out, gone too far down this road and not going to turn back. Yes, the pics also show epoxy down there as well, what a mess. I'm great at taking things apart, putting them back together as good or better than it was, not so much.
|
|
|
Post by Unit731 on May 29, 2014 1:44:28 GMT
Glad I didn't buy this sword.
|
|
|
Post by plantguy90 on Jun 8, 2014 18:01:46 GMT
well, its done, drilled out the brass pins, popped off the handle. Chiseled off the epoxy around the joint. Theres a rubbery glue along the entire inner grip, and a harder white epoxy blob for the tsuba. Still shaking my head, wondering how many of the cheaper swords are made this way. I'm not a stickler on the full tang thing, but this one was advertised as such. I suppose the design with the bump on the outer tang near the welds offers pretty good support, I honestly don't know. Not a welder, so cant say how solid or strong 3 spot welds on each side will do for this one in the long haul. Had to clean off a bit of slight rust as well near the welds. And yeah, the grips got beat up a bit, but oh well, its "tactical," right? Now to figure out how to get this thing welded up proper...
|
|
|
Post by plantguy90 on Jun 15, 2014 5:23:33 GMT
Question 1: What kind of weld is that from the factory? Or is that a solder? Question 2: Would brazing be good or a waste of time?
Someone mentioned TIG welding in an earlier post, which would be great if I had that resource, but I don't have access to a good welder. But I was considering soldering - brazing as an alternative, not as great, but maybe would give it extra bonding as well as filling micro gaps?
|
|
|
Post by Onimusha on Jun 15, 2014 20:12:38 GMT
Well, It looks like you have a pin that goes through the grip scales at least. The tang is also locked in with tabs, like a jigsaw puzzle. looks like they take blades that have some sort of flaw, cut them down, and make tack waks out of them. I've seen shamshir hilts that were made by gluing grip scales to a metal frame like that. The blades were held in with two pins. You may not be as bad off as you think.
|
|
|
Post by plantguy90 on Jun 20, 2014 21:57:02 GMT
OK, found a local welder that says he'd be willing to weld it up on the cheap, but he mentioned that the heat from the welding could affect the blade metal and possibly weaken it I'm not a pro but was about to ask the welder if its possible to place a heat sink in between the work area and the blade, I'd hate to have the blade get affected by any monkeying around. Any thoughts?
|
|
|
Post by aussie-rabbit on Jun 21, 2014 4:54:42 GMT
Even a big pair of vice-grips would do, just remember to let the tang cool naturally, forced cooling may harden the tang.
|
|
|
Post by plantguy90 on Jun 23, 2014 19:29:32 GMT
According to the welder, any part of the blade that might get heated up to 450 could lose its temper. The TIG weld would be 2800 at the weld area. So is it possible to make this blade worse?
|
|
|
Post by plantguy90 on Jul 2, 2014 5:54:39 GMT
Happy to say found a decent kid who welds on the side off of Craigslist who also didn't charge me an arm and a leg, and this is the result :mrgreen: : MIG welding, baby! Going in the welder was concerned the heat could affect the blade and its temper , but after discussing options he reported back that he touched the blade soon after the welding and said it wasn't hot to the touch! I think he may have used some aluminum as a heat sink. Only welded the bottom section after the factory welds because of the heat concern. Looks solid to me... definitely better than the original welds Now the rivets were ruined by the Dremel during the tear down process, so now am on the hunt for decent substitutes at the hardware store. The grips also got a bit beat up so while they may get put back on for now the plan is to make a new grip. The 1st sword ever fixer project is moving along nicely!
|
|
|
Post by aussie-rabbit on Jul 2, 2014 9:01:06 GMT
1000% better than the original, looks really solid
|
|
|
Post by aussie-rabbit on Jul 2, 2014 9:03:20 GMT
The tang should be not be hard regardless so that weld looks fine
|
|
Kuya
Registered
Posts: 1,396
|
Post by Kuya on Jul 6, 2014 23:56:05 GMT
Wondering if anyone has done a tear down of a Hanwei tactical sword to see if they do it the same way?
|
|
bpogue
Manufacturer/Vendor
Posts: 354
|
Post by bpogue on Jul 7, 2014 11:56:04 GMT
Yes they have been taken apart, and no they are not done this way. Hanwei uses a true full tang (no welds) that is skeletonized to reduce the weight a bit.
Blake
|
|
Kuya
Registered
Posts: 1,396
|
Post by Kuya on Jul 7, 2014 22:03:27 GMT
So beast! Thanks, Blake.
|
|