Custom Scales for a Victorinox Swiss Army Knife - Gemstone Scales

This blog entry begins with a simple second hand Victorinox 'Classic' knife (or Swiss Army Knife) that I picked up off Ebay for $10:

Victorinox - Swiss Army Knife - Classic

I have seen a number of people revamp old knives in various different forms over the years and I decided a little while back that I would give it a go with custom gemstone scales. I thought that IF (and it was a very big if!) I could pull it off it would make a nice personal Christmas present for my Dad.

Here is how I did it:

The Victorinox with scales removed

The first step of this operation was to pull the knife apart. Easily done - the plastic scales on these knives simply click into place. All you need to do is remove the tweezers and tooth pick and slide a small flat head screwdriver under the scale and 'click' them out. If your not sure what I mean, do a quick search for 'remove scales from victorinox' in youtube - I am sure you will find something! Because of the difficulties involved with the tweezers and toothpick, we will discard them at this point.

Marble Bar Jasper Rough Slab

The next step is to pick your stone. I couldn't decide between a number of different slabs I had, so I made my wife decide. She thought that this piece of Marble Bar Jasper would look great because of the layers and banding. Marble Bar Jasper is found in outback Western Australia. It derives its name from being mistaken for Marble when it was first discovered in the Coongan River. A town near the deposit has also been called Marble Bar as a result. It is a relatively soft jasper compared to most which makes it easier to cut, but generally doesn't get as much of a polish on it as other jasper's.

Preforming the Swiss Army Knife Scales

Mark the slab with the required shape using the old scales as the template for the new. Trim the material and create the pre-form scales. You can check out my How-To guide on cutting cabochons if you would like to know how this is done.

At this point I blue tacked the old scales onto the preform and continued to grind away the edge of the stone to create the right shape. This makes it easier to get the right shape without having to constantly stop and check that you haven't taken too much material off.







After following the normal cabochon cutting process (more info here), I ended up with 2 identical cabochons which will eventually be the new scales of the Victorinox knife:

Custom Stone Scales for the Victorinox Swiss Army Knife

That was the easy bit! Now we need to make the stone fit on the knife!

The picture on the left shows the side of the plastic scales that you don't see, and the below picture shows the 'naked' Victorinox. You will notice that the knife is put together with 4 rivets (which protrude on each side) and the scale has corresponding holes. This is how the plastic scales are attached - the rivets on the knife click into the holes on the scales. We are not able to do this with a stone scale, but if we were to remove the rivets the knife would fall apart.

'Naked' Swiss Army Knife

Because of this issue, we need to improvise a wee bit. We need to allow for the rivets in the stone, which does take some precision work.

To ensure that I am allowing for the rivets in exactly the right spot, I drilled the rest of the way through the plastic scales so that it could be used as a template............

Then using that template, I marked the exact location of the holes on the back side of each of the cabochons. X marks the spot!

Using a rotary tool, diamond burr, and leaving the cabochon immersed in water, I drilled holes in the back side of the cab where the X had been marked. You need to take great care with this part as you don't want to go right through the stone, nor do you want to slip and ruin the cabochon. The stone is covered in water to keep the diamond burr cool and lubricated

Repeat process for both scales!

The cabs should end up looking something like this. Not pretty I know, but who is going to see that side of them? This ugliness will be hidden once the new 'Victorinox' scales are attached! The drilling was probably the most difficult part of the process, mainly because it was awkward more than hard. It is important that you do not polish the back of the cabochons so that the glue has something to grab on to.







The next step is the final part of the whole process - Gluing. You want to use a fairly strong 2 part epoxy glue. My weapon of choice is Araldite which is available from pretty much any where including the supermarket and most hardware stores. You only want to glue one side at a time and give the first side a good 10 to 15 minutes to solidify before moving to the next. Any spillage can be cleaned up with acetone (nail polish remover). I made sure that there was plenty of glue in the holes that I drilled and also a decent amount on the back of the cab. Hopefully this holds everything together ok!



When you have finished gluing, you should end up with a finished product like the below. The old Victorinox with scratched plastic scales now looks a million dollars with a bit of a clean up and some nice new stone scales!

Classic Victorinox SD Swiss Army Knife with Custom Gemstone Scales

Thanks for checking out my blog! You can find out more about Jaka Gems at our Facebook page, or our Online Store. I am also looking at adding these knives to the store so if you would like something similar, feel free to contact me at jakagems@hotmail.com - I am more than happy to sort out custom orders!

Cheers!

Update 24th March 2013: I have just finished uploading the first release of these customized Victorinox Swiss Army Knives! Check them out here!