Big, Bad, Bowie, Build along!

Benr.t

Benr.t

Well-Known Member
Hey guys!
I am currently working on a large bowie for a good customer of mine, and I have been snapping pics along the way. It is "only" stock removal, so some you may or may not be interested. I am almost done now, but I figured I would share what I have so far. I don't have pics of every step, but you will get the idea.
It will take a little while to put all of the pics together, but I figured I would get started.


This is going to be a fairly large Bowie, to his loose specs. The blade is appx. 11" long and 1075 (my favorite for a nice hamon). It is a big bellied blade with a curvy clip.


Here is the blade rough profiled.





Getting the clip roughed in. It can be tricky on a curved clip.





Here the blade is rough ground and ready for Heat treat.





Here it is with the clay applied. I normally use Satanite, but I was trying this other stuff out on this one. It has a very thin wash on the whole blade, and then about a 1/16" where I want the "soft" areas to be.





Ok, so hardening and tempering went very well. I quenched in parks 50. No pics, sorry.


Here I am cleaning up the clip. I want to keep nice crisp lines, this is easiest by hand.





Off the grinder and on to hand sanding. I wish I was a better grinder, I could spend less time hand sanding.
Here the blade is at about 120 grit, and you can already see the hamon popping out.





Here I am cleaning up the ricasso/choil area. It is important to keep everything nice and square here. I find it easier to use edm stones in here.





And the other side of the blade, it is now at 220. Only 7 more grits to go!!! :D







More pics to come........
 
Nice work there, nothing wrong with stock removal even forged knives end up on the grinder so it's all stock removal at some point, duck and :117_running_dog:
 
well i mostly forge my blades, but do that for two reasons! first becouse i enjoy that!, secondly by need....i mostly use scrap steels,like bearings or springs, but i have nothing against stock removal, i don't even find that they have any big difference from a forged blade,is just another technique!. so i see very good job till now and very clean and crisp lines..would be a great knife, well done so far
 
Thanks for the interest guys, I appreciate it!! Everything I have learned about making knives, I learned by reading info posted online, a lot of it from people in this forum. So if someone can now learn something from one of my posts, that means a lot.




here we go..
So many, many hours later, we have a blade hand sanded to 2500 grit!
At this point, before I etch the hamon, I like to fit the guard.





In this pic I am starting to get the fittings together and layed out. The guard and pommel are steel and the spacers are copper. In the past I have welded a "stub tang" on the back of my pommel to epoxy into the handle material. I took a cue from David Lisch's latest Wip, in using a using a little hole pattern jig and pins. It worked very well and was pretty simple. Thanks David!
I am going with a clam shell guard on this one.





Here I am milling the slot on the guard. If you do the math right, you can save yourself a ton of file work. Another shout out to Karl Andersen for a tutorial he did a while back on milling guards.





Removing everything that isn't a guard.





Cleaned up and the "shells" hollowed out.





Here the guard is bent and I am contouring the outside of the shells.





Filing the ribs in the shells.





more pics in the next post....
 
Thanks guys!


At this point it is finished, I will try and wrap up the rest of the pics.


The guard fit up on the blade, that math paid off!





Milling the slot in the copper spacer.





Truing up the ends of the walrus.





Marking the Ancient walrus ivory for the tang. This is the first time I have worked with it, kind of nerve racking. :eek:





Drilling hole number one..





Hole number two.





I decided to connect the dots by hand. I could have used a long end mill, but I wanted to er on the side of caution.


 
Using that little jig to drill matching holes in the end of the handle.





All together for the first time.





Shaping the spacer and pommel.





Cleaning up the shape on the handle.





All sanded and polished up.





The guard and pommel browned and the copper spacers heat colored.





Last minute, I changed my mind on the spacer and added some subtle texture and grooves.





Here is the blade after I etched and polished to hamon.





Gluing up in my fancy big bowie clamp. ;)







Time to start the sheath......
 
Thanks!

I only have a couple pics of making the sheath, but here they are. It has bison leather front and is entirely hand stitched.








 
And without further ado........


I did my best taking pictures of this beast.




















I am very pleased with how it came out. And am quite proud of the fact that it is 100% sole authorship from blade to sheath to pictures.
Any and all feedback is welcome and encouraged. Thanks for watching!!
 
You did a heck of a job. With the pictures and the materials you used it looks like something the old hunters would carry back in the day on an African Safari. Nice work man!
 
It is just so well made. A great combination of materials used that work so well together. Very elegant for such a big knife.
 
That turned out great. I really like the color of the guard, the hammered copper gives it a antique look.
 
You should be proud of it. The fit and finish look fantastic. I really like the different mix of materials used and how well the work together. Great job!

John
 
Nice work,that is very nice work ! In the words of the late D.E. Henry....don't use stock removal. It's like saying Raquel Welch is a female or that AJ Foyt can drive a car. It's not at all descriptive . Grinding is the only correct terminology to be used....... Also.....To me,Forging is a stupid way of making a knife.Like handforging a car.What a character.Disclaimer I do both lol .
 
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