I have an old military knife from WWII that belonged to one of my
grandmothers brothers that fought in the war.  I believe this knife to be a
Camillus.  It has the stacked leather washer type handle.  My mother gave
the knife to me after my grandmother passed away a few years ago.  Anyway,
the knife was hanging on a wall for as many years as I can remember at my
grandmother's house.  Over the years, as you can imagine, the handle has
deteriorated greatly and is now literally disintegrating.  I was
contemplating how to repair the handle.  Making the leather washers will
not be a problem.  I have stuff to do that.  However, I am confused as to
how to get the bolster off of the bottom of the handle.  It appears that
the center shaft for the handle simply slips through the piece of steel on
the butt of the knife and is then peened over to lock the piece of steel
into place.  If that is the case, I suppose the most logical way to remove
would be to file away the peening until I can get it off.  Naturally, that
process would also mean that the shaft would then be shorter when
re-assembling.  I don't see that as a problem since it would only shorten
things by about 1/16" to 1/8" which should not affect functionality of the
knife at all.  I think I can come up with a means by which to compress the
leather washers and to form the handle prior to installation.   Now to my
question, I'm conteplating the idea of how to peen over the end to lock in
the piece of steel on the butt of the knife.  On the original, which I'm
pretty sure was probably done with some sort of machine, is quite uniform.
Do you fellows have any suggestions as to the most effective method to do
this peening to lock in that little steel piece on the butt of the handle?
Would it help if I heated it prior to attempting to peening?  I looked at
the series of messages from a few months ago about doing a similar repair
on an Estwing Hammer (or it may have been a hatchet) handle.  Those are
definitely similar in concept, but the steel washer/bolster and the way it
is peened look a little different from the Estwing Hatchet that I own that
has a leather washer handle.  Any suggestions would be appreciated.  If
anyone has done a similar repair on one of these types of knives, I would
love to see some pictures if you have any.

Thanks,

Doc

-- 
John Holladay
DocHolladay0820@g...
205-229-8484
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