Carved Damascus Bowie

M

Mathsr

Guest
This is a special order that I just finished. It has a carved Sambar stag handle that is a takedown and a carved stainless Damascus steel blade that is 8 inches long. It has a blued steel guard and butt cap. We usually have a couple of these in the works and it is a good feeling to get to this point with one.

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Harry, you and Charlie amaze me. That is "Top-Shelf" in anybody's book.

Hope to see you guys again soon.

Robert
 
Thanks for the comments guys. I've been working on this one for a while. I knew carving the stag would take a while, I've done that several times, but I was really unprepared for the time it took carving the damascus. It always feels like you could do just a little more, or there is only a couple of more scratches you want to get out. These are fun to do, but fun to finish too.
 
This one is a flat grind Carey. I will admit that the "plunge cut" does get tricky on these carved blades.
 
Nice work! How do you treat the stag after you finished the carving? I could probably carve a piece of stag and get it to look like Swiss cheese at its best. What type of tool are you using for the carving?
 
Thanks again for the comments! We treat it like we would ivory and wipe it down with something like baby oil when we are finished with it. I'm not sure it really needs anything but I have had some of my stag handle knives develop small cracks with age. I prefer to keep it wiped down to keep it from drying out over time.

I use a turbo carver for the piercings and rough work. That is one handy tool for a knife shop. Most of what you see has been carved with a small carving knife I made out of a piece of scrap CPM S30V. I even used it a good bit on the carved damascus, but most of the steel carving was done with engraving tools. A lot of the finish work on both the stag and the Damascus was done with various scrapers made from files.
 
Harry,

Does the carving threaten the integrity of the blade or handle? Is this solely an art knife or is it intended for use?

Beautiful workmanship!
 
Rock the stag is supported well at both ends with fitted micarta inserts and the hole in the stag is only large enough to allow the tang to get through. The tang is fitted to the stag prior to heat treating. This leaves the stag a little over 1/4 inch thick, the carving is well supported (no long pieces sticking out into the air) and the piercings are all fairly small though there are many of them. Stag is very tough and not brittle like ivory would be. We have several of these being used as hunting knives and it does not concern us at all. All that being said, I don't think I would recommend this type of handle for a chopping/competition knife, but they are all built to be used. Charlie has a knife of this type in his collection that we suspect to be nearly 100 years old. There are no cracks or problems with it at all and Charlie has used it himself in hunting.

As far as the blade is concerned, when we design the recasso area we try to leave more metal in the cross section than would be in the area of the tang. We would expect it to be stronger than the tang and much stronger than the blade itself.

This particular knife is destined for a display rack on a business man's desk. He did not even want a sheath with it. I seriously doubt that it will be used in any significant way, but for all practical purposes it is ready to go for whatever a bowie is suited for and will be delivered shaving sharp.
 
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