bauernwehr inspired knife with pweld and hamon

Hello Everyone,
I was inspired to try this after seeing the bauernwehr thread. This knife is too short, most likely. Still, it is similar to the style. It was a lot of fun to make, and I will definitely make larger ones in the future.

I can't photo all that well, as you all know. This steel/heat treatment combination is the most attractive thing I have ever made. The steel is a random mix of low mang 1075 and w2 with about 400 layers. I varied the sizes of the beginning stock pieces so the layers are not all the same.

The hamon has the cool 3D effect you can sometimes get, and there is an obvious hada underneath.

The blade is about 11" long. Scales are just cow horn, fittings are nickel silver (looks cool, but it really clogs your files, doesn't it?).

Also, turns out nickel silver peens a little differently than steel, iron, or copper, so I did the things I have always done, but the edges of the pins are just visibble. I even put a little pattern of leaf veins on the nagel with filework and bluing. I also learned that I should start filework with a small triangle file to keep the round file from slipping (i.e., I screwed up part of the leaf).

thanks for looking, comments are welcomed, as always.

Kevin,
You are getting some really nice hamon activity. Cool looking blade and nice all around knife. Wade

Kevin I like that one for sure , the Hamon is quite startling . I also like the kickback on the kissaki very nice ... Bubba

Thanks wade and bubba-san. You can't see it in the pics, but this type of knife actually has a slightly-enlarged tip like a sword. So, the geometry of the steel helps with the "boshi" look on the hamon. I almost put an armor-piercing point on this one, but I need to practice those some more and didn't want to screw this up. I want to learn to make the armor piercing tips like you see on a lot of Roman and Indian and Persian stuff. It was actually found on this style of knife, too. They were meant as last-ditch fighting knives in the size I made here. They are sometimes big enough that they merge with the grossmesser or kriegsmesser, and are a way that regular people got around laws forbidding common folk from carrying swords. Many times, local rulers needed a militia, so they allowed poor people to use loopholes in the laws, and carry Big Knives or War Knives. They weren't swords under the law. It is sort of like me putting a 25-round clip on my Ruger 10/22. It isn't considered an assault weapon under the laws of CT, but there is really no difference between how it functions and how the ones that are considered illegal function (only dif is the stock is wood and doesn't collapse). Not somethine anyone on the receiving end would ever notice. But LEGAL. People have always been this way.

kc