Let's build a bowie for TEOTWAWKI

[D.Ellis]

I have been too busy to do much with this blade, but I have heat treated it and am closing in on the finish grind. I remembered, this time, to trace the blade before and after heat treat. You can see how much the blade curved downward.
 
More to come, eventually  :rolleyes:    
Darcy

[D.Ellis]

OK, Some more progress, gonna try and keep the momentum up and get this done.
ground and ready to test.
 
After cutting through some pine knots, no damage to the edge, I stepped it up to this chunk of moose antler, the edge showed some slight rippling, telling me it was a bit too thin, so off to the grinder and take the edge back to leave it with some more beef. Whacked away at the antler again and no more problem. I do not make many blades this long, and the extra leverage requires a thicker edge than I have gotten used to doing.........live and learn.  
 
Now to draw back the spine to a spring temper...........don't want any risk of breakage from hard use. I put about 1/4 inch of water in a pan to keep the edge cool and play the torch flame on the back of the blade until it turns blue. I do this twice, once from each side to keep thing as even as possible.
 
Spine drawn back ready to move on.
 
To be continued.
Darcy

[D.Ellis]

Picked out an ok elk tine.........not a great one but I am not going for looks here, just has to be tough, fit the hand and not be too popcorny rough. Don't want to create hot spots in the hand while chopping.
 
Lining up with the tang to see where I need to drill the preliminary holes.

 

Partly fit up. This shows the home made broach tool for opening up the drilled hole. I also use a 1/4 inch wood chisel and a couple narrow files to get the fit as close as reasonably possible.
 

Here the handle is on as far as it needs to go for now........very tight fit on the tang. shaped the handle to fit the hand a little nicer and line up with the ricasso. Note the taped edge so I don't cut off any body parts I may need later.
 
That's it for today. More tomorrow........unless my new Great Northern Lil Creep comes in, in which case all bets are off.   :D  
Darcy

[tomsm44]

       

Looking great.  Hope you get it done before the end gets here.  I'd hate to miss the finished product.  Have you ever tried getting the finished polish done before drawing the spine back then leaving the blue temper line?  I think that might look pretty cool.  Kinda like a blue hamon.  I might try that on a hunter I'm working on just for kicks and giggles.  May be tricky on a smaller blade though.

[D.Ellis]

Originally posted by tomsm44:
               

Looking great.  Hope you get it done before the end gets here.  I'd hate to miss the finished product.  Have you ever tried getting the finished polish done before drawing the spine back then leaving the blue temper line?  I think that might look pretty cool.  Kinda like a blue hamon.  I might try that on a hunter I'm working on just for kicks and giggles.  May be tricky on a smaller blade though.

Thanks Matt, I hope I get it done before THE END too, I'm not real speedy though  :D  
A few years back I did leave the spine temper colors on the finished blade. One thing to keep in mind is the heat from the torch always leaves a scum stain near the water line if you use this method. Instead, use a really hot torch so the spine heats quick enough without too much heat bleeding down to the edge, and just keep the pan of water handy to cool it in case things start to get away on ya. It does look cool, but the temper colors are not really durable, so with use I'd expect them to wear away after a while.


Anyway, a bit more work got done today(since my bow didn't get here  :(  ) so here're some pics.
Drilling and tapping a piece of 1/2 inch O-1 drill rod for the tang nut in the lathe to keep everything nice and straight.
 

[D.Ellis]

I should mention, when tapping holes in the lathe, I do not use power, just turn the chuck by hand and let the threads advance the tailstock(not locked down). I only do this in the lathe to keep it centered and straight.
After cutting the threads and stepping the shank down I cut it off and reverse the nut in the chuck to shape the window breaker/zombie head cracker.
 
Then I file a flat on 2 sides of the nut so I can tighten it up with a crescent wrench.
 
Here's the nut fitted onto the tang with the antler in place........see how the butt is not true and square with the nut?
 
And here it is with the antler trued up........just enough gap left for the buttcap.
 
After this I hardened and tempered the nut to make it stand up to abuse, but I failed to take any pics of that step.
Tomorrow I hope to get the guard and collar as well as the buttcap shaped and fit, if not textured and finished. If I can, this knife will be done and we will make a sheath for it by early next week, but thats getting ahead of myself.      :D
Darcy

[D.Ellis]

Started the guard......drill holes and file it to fit. This is a piece of 3/16 thick mild steel.
 

Here, I have fit the guard up close to the shoulder on the tang. Also shows the super high tech tool(oak with a slot in it) I use to drift the guard into place......ball pein hammer not in photo.
 

This pic shows the marks where I am getting too much contact and have to remove some metal from the guard to make it fit closer......basically I just keep trying and filing till it fits.
 

After I get the fit good and close, I shaped the guard a bit and do some bending. Notice the brass shim to keep the jaws of the wrench from maring the guard up.

 

Gives you an idea of where I am going.
 

Starting on the spacer.......this is 1/4 inch thick copper.
 

And here is where I ended up for the day...... lots of shaping, refining, fine tuning and such to go........but I am tired now so it waits until tomorrow.

 


Darcy    

[Lin Rhea]

Very nice WIP. That's the kind of tutorial I like. Your work show a particular "philosophy" in the craft that I enjoy.

[kansas stik man]

looks great , might even make a good EDC if ya have to fight bears for a living!

[Steve Nuckels]

Enjoying this!

Much appreciated!

I have a big 5160 project comming up soon!

Steve
--------
Potomac Forge
W.F. Moran Jr. Museum & Foundation

[D.Ellis]

Thanks guys.
Here's a recap of what I got acomplished today.
Shaped and fluted the copper spacer.
 

Did some contouring of the guard to make it more friendly on the hand, and made the buttcap......1/8 inch mild steel. Also got the fit between the blade, guard, spacer and handle, in that order, sorted out better.
 
 

Attacking the guard and buttcap with a carbide cutter in the dremel tool. I make sure I get all the visible metal textured so no file or tool marks are left from the contouring and shaping. The only places that get left are where the shoulders of the blade sit on the front of the guard, and where the spacer sits on the back of the guard. Also the small area where the pommel nut seats against the buttcap.
 

After they are textured, I give them a good shot of cold blue, and then sand with 600 grit wet dry paper, and scotchbrite. Leaves me with a nice(to my eye anyway) granite look. You can see in this pic the guard is textured and blued, but not rubbed back. The buttcap is done.
 
Closing in on it now. Hope to be cutting leather for the sheath by monday. Stay tuned.
Darcy  

[Doug Campbell]

Yep, excellent tutorial Darcy, you've put about as much work into this as the knife. Thanks!

[D.Ellis]

Thanks Doug.
It wouldn't be so much work to do these buildalongs but for the fact that it seems every time I try it, the knife fights me every step of the way. But then, some of them fight you every step of the way reguardless.  :D  
So today, I had to clean up a few deep file marks on the false edge and some hand sanding(minimal) on the blade. After that, I dug out that bottle of cold blue again.
 
And then into the bleach. I use a 2 inch ABS tank for this. The grip clamp is to set the blade depth in the bleach just to the start of the tang. For some reason, I usually have to take the blade out and clean it off with scotch brite and water before the bleach really starts to work. Then I just do as many cycles in the bleach as it takes to get the degree of etch I want.

 
 
Here's what the blade looks like after it comes out of the bleach.......looks scarey eh?  :eek:  

 

[D.Ellis]

I scrub the worst of the crud off gently with scotchbrite, and then 1500 grit wet dry and mineral oil until it looks something like this.
 

Never need worry about rust and staining again with a finish like this. It is a super rugged finish........ and let's face it, no amount of abuse or neglect can make it look any worse than it did when it first came out of the bleach. It's been trained to not expect coddling and feather pillows at this point........ready for anything the apocalypse can throw at it.  :D  

And we close with this one for today. Guard and spacer driven on and sealed with JB weld. Final assembly is near.

 

Have a happy Easter guys. See you soon.
Darcy  

[tomsm44]

First time I've seen the methods explained for this type of blade finish.  Seen a few before and always been curious because I like the antique look it gives.  Just to be clear:  cold blue, then bleach and scotch brite/1500 grit multiple times until desired finish is reached?  I've got a blade ready for heat treat that this finish may look good on since its based on about a 1500 year old design.  Don't want to do it wrong and ruin a blade.  Love the last pic by the way.

[D.Ellis]

Originally posted by tomsm44:
First time I've seen the methods explained for this type of blade finish.  Seen a few before and always been curious because I like the antique look it gives.  Just to be clear:  cold blue, then bleach and scotch brite/1500 grit multiple times until desired finish is reached?  I've got a blade ready for heat treat that this finish may look good on since its based on about a 1500 year old design.  Don't want to do it wrong and ruin a blade.  Love the last pic by the way.

Thanks Matt,
That's the procedure I use. Pretty hard to ruin the blade unless you left it in the bleach way too long.
I look forward to seeing your knife, so please make sure you show us when you get-r-done.    


I got the final assembly done tonight, but light was terrible for pics so all I got was this one of the tang all gooped up with epoxy. Pics of the finished knife tomorrow, and we'll start on the sheath too.    

 

Darcy

[bculberson]

I judge by how you mixed your epoxy you must be filing wireless this year  :p  

Looking forward to seeing the finished blade!

[tomsm44]

Thanks Darcy.  I've had several in the works since the end of January, but haven't finished any of them.  A set of 9 matching full tang hunters for a friend to use as gifts next Christmas (first knives I've sold).  I've been wanting to try a hidden tang, so I mixed a couple of those in to break up the monotony so I have 12 ready for heat treat once I drill all the pin holes this week.   Doing 9 identical ones will drive you crazy by the way.  I'll definitely get some pics up when I'm done.

[D.Ellis]

Originally posted by bculberson:
I judge by how you mixed your epoxy you must be filing wireless this year   :p  

Looking forward to seeing the finished blade!

:D  
Thanks Bruce........last years papers    

Got some pics today.
Here're the final specs.
19.5 inch overall length.
Blade tip to guard......13 7/8"
Mass- 1pound 9.5oz
 

 

 

 

Time to start the sheath.
Darcy

[D.Ellis]

OK guys. I took a lot of pics of this process so this'll be fairly lenthy. Consider yourself forwarned.
I start with a tracing of the blade on cardboard........to this tracing I add the border for the welt. In this case I have a welt width of 7/16 inch. This is plenty strong without making the sheath excessively wide.
In this pic you can see the tracing with the welt border, two pairs each 10oz and 4 oz and 2 welts. I lucked out and had a naturally tapered section of this leather to cut the welt out and it matched the distal taper almost perfectly. I usually have to skive the welt to match the distal taper.
 

figuring out where to place and punching the hole for the stud button mounting screw. Obviously this is the front of the sheath.

 

Laying out the border for the tooling as well as the line where the stitching will go with the adjustable border marking tool.
 

At this point I wet the leather down for tooling with warm water. I am using a damp cloth. The leather needs to stay damp for the tooling process so I will continue to wipe it with the cloth every time it seems to be drying out too much.