Drawing a Bowie blade?

Stew

Stew

Well-Known Member
This is a blade shape I really struggle to sketch out and to make it look right.

Any suggestions of rules to follow (that can be broken later on)

The problem I have is getting the curve of the edge to look right with the angle of the spine, especially when you add in a false edge.

Help! :D
 
Ok, this is not really a bowie knife question, it's a knife design question. From someone who finds stick figures to be very challenging all I can say is practice, practice, practice. Sketch out a knife and take a look at it. If you don't like the way it looks, find one element that you think is wrong and correct it. If that looks better, look for another element. If you work on that first element and the changes don't do what you're wanting, take a look to see if it's something else that bothering you. Use graf paper, compasses, French curves, whatever tool it takes to help you complete your sketch. Don't worry about how Billy-Bob or anyone else works. Develope your system.

I have to do the same thing except that I have to go from a mental picture to the steel. That's probably one of the reasons I forge blades instead of doing strick stock removal. It's keep working on it until you get it the way that you want it.

Doug
 
I've found that tracing over a photo of a "pretty close" knife helps too. I was trying to sketch out a kukri design for a cousin and just COULD NOT get the curves right... until I pulled up some photos on-line - put them in a photo-tweaking program - blew them up to full size - printed them out (multi-page - taped back together) and traced over them a few times to get the muscle-memory & my brain set to kukri-space.

Also - "Bowie" is in the eyes of the beholder. There's spearpoint, false edge, D guard, Smithsonian, Sheffield English, New England, Western... the sandbar fight knife was probably a large guardless butcher knife (no false edge) - and the list goes on... it has been noted that the knife shown in The Martyrdom of Saint Agatha (painted 300 years before Jim Bowie was born) looks more like a classic Bowie Knife than the knife used in the sandbar fight or the "Bowie Knife" which Jim Bowie gave to Edwin Forrest.
 
Not to steal the thread, Michael, but I couldn't agree with you more on bowie knives. Too many things have been labled bowie knives for the term to have much meaning so I avoid using it. Even though people like to think of it as being the quintessential American the design is at least as much, if not more, English. Whether or not you think that the design is basicallly a broken back seax with a short concave clip with a guard added it was the English knife manufacturers who came up with the design for the American buyers who wanted a knife like Jim Bowie's.

Doug
 
Doug Lester said:
Ok, this is not really a bowie knife question, it's a knife design question. From someone who finds stick figures to be very challenging all I can say is practice, practice, practice. Sketch out a knife and take a look at it. If you don't like the way it looks, find one element that you think is wrong and correct it. If that looks better, look for another element. If you work on that first element and the changes don't do what you're wanting, take a look to see if it's something else that bothering you. Use graf paper, compasses, French curves, whatever tool it takes to help you complete your sketch. Don't worry about how Billy-Bob or anyone else works. Develope your system.
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This is how I started out... struggling. Not being able to draw as well as the pictures I saw in my mind's eye, I had to do what I could to compensate. Being a perfectionist doesn't help either. Once I got the design on paper, I'd make a template out of micarta or G10 or aluminum. If that template came out with pleasing aesthetic, then I'd go ahead with the build.
 
Copy one you think you like. It won't end up the same as the one you copied, but will get you going. After doing a few, you will do your own from start. Frank
 
I start with paper. Then 1/8 plywood. And then I start with a few messed up blade blanks! I have lots! Keep working at it. That is part of the fun.
 
When I'm designing or drawing a knife for the first time, I usually like to break it up into pieces. Fortunately, you already know WHAT design you want to go after, and you at least have an idea of where to start.

For me, it usually starts with laying out a rectangle the same size as the piece of flat stock I'll be using. Then I mark off the area for my handle (if it's 4", 5", 6" etc...)

Next, I'll find where I want my point: center? slightly above center? etc...

Then I draw in any parts that I know will be straight and/or parallel, which in the case of a bowie is probably the first half of the blade or so, unless you're giving it some extra belly.

After that, it's just a matter of filling in the "blanks" and fine tuning every thing until it looks right. I usually have a very big eraser on hand. hahah.

The point is, you want to get the easy/basic parts down on paper before you try the more tricky parts. This should make it easier to visualize.
It does for me anyway. ;)
 
Doug Lester said:
Ok, this is not really a bowie knife question, it's a knife design question. From someone who finds stick figures to be very challenging all I can say is practice, practice, practice. Sketch out a knife and take a look at it. If you don't like the way it looks, find one element that you think is wrong and correct it. If that looks better, look for another element. If you work on that first element and the changes don't do what you're wanting, take a look to see if it's something else that bothering you. Use graf paper, compasses, French curves, whatever tool it takes to help you complete your sketch.
Click to expand...

+1 French Curves... very useful for developing and cleaning up a design.
 
I am relatively new to this also but my best advice is just draw what you do a good job on some paper small enough to make a copy or two and practice the tricky parts on the copy then repeat the sketch you liked onto your original paper.
This is what I have learned takes a lot of the redrawing the entire knife out of the process. Also if you are like me you might get two or three designs out of your first draft.
 
I am no artist when it comes to drawing, what really made a world of difference for me was not French curves, but Ship Curves.... I think you could use one as a template and make a knife from one. They say the keel of ships and blades are similar and I can see why. The best tool I have in my drawing bag!!

ShipCurve.jpg
 
Just a suggestion but pull up a pic of one that you like the looks of and then free hand a drawing of it. Using the pic as reference then you will be able to see where you free hand drawing is unlike the one you are drawing. When you finish your drawing it will be similar but never exactly alike as you free-handed yours. Another thing when it comes to Bowie knives there are probably hundreds of different various shapes that are considered by many to be a Bowie. Older Bowies tended to be shorter and fatter than say a more modern version of a Bowie
 
I like to use an artists easel for rough drawing, I can stand back etc. Then draw over it with a marker, trace it, cut it out re trace with a pencil and change it... I get 6-12 designs on a easel page before I have to switch. I like to step back and look at it or leave it there and come back to it later... Sometimes my "later" look will yield a surprising effect e.g. I really like it or really hate it... ;) enjoy
 
i like to use google sketchup, its free and very easy to use. then i google "images of knives" find something i like, import the photo and trace.....then i alter just how i want, then print , or output a g-code file for my cnc. biggest thing its free and easy. here are a few i made.
monkeyfolder.jpg

newknife.jpg

garyknife.png

sketch-upknife.jpg

if you serch bowie knife thers a ton of them, then you can alter how you like. peace, randy.
 
To design an aesthetically pleasing bowie, I strongly suggest you study the originals.

fluidsteel said:
I am no artist when it comes to drawing, what really made a world of difference for me was not French curves, but Ship Curves.... I think you could use one as a template and make a knife from one. They say the keel of ships and blades are similar and I can see why. The best tool I have in my drawing bag!!

View attachment 26615
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Thanks for that, I've never seen those before and they do look very useful.

I usually make a detailed drawing and then ignore it, though...:3:
 
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