This is the Take-Down fixed blade with the scales and bolster reassembled after etching. The space behind the handle and bolsters where blocked from the etch by using fingernail polish.
This is a shot of the damascus pattern along the edge of the handle, very affective in contrast to the bolsters and handle material. If you have any questions about constructions please feel free to ask or comment.
This is a take-down knife that I am making for a customer. The blade is damascus that hasn’t been etched or heat treated yet. I will post pictures when done.
The bolsters are 416 stainless and will be engraved. They are attached with two 0-80 screws and held in alinement with four 1/16 pins. The handle is interiour mammoth ivory and will be scrimshawed. They are attached with two 4-40 button head screws. Using this method the knife can be completed then taken apart and etched so the damascus pattern shows all the way around. The pieces can also be sent to various artists to be scrimed or engraved. I will be posting more photo’s later.
Lightning Strike Bowie
Quite a few hours have gone into the finish sanding, etching, and assembly to get from the final picture in the last post to the finished knife. This knife will be going to San Antonio for the ABS all forged blade Expo. I hope to see many of you there. This Bowie is for sale so if you are interested please let me know. Any comments are welcome.
A little about the Bowie
Blade: 7″ mosaic buffalo center with firestorm wrap. 13″ overall length
Guard, Butt cap, and ferrals: Firestorm with filework
Spacers: Gold anodized titanium
Handle: Walrus Ivory
The Buffalo where waterjet cut from High carbon steel and stacked inside a 4″ piece of 1/4″ wall square tube, Nickel powder was them poured into the tube and caps where welded on the ends.
1 1/2" square buffalo mosaicThe tube was welded in the forge with great care not to distort the image inside. The square in this photo is aproximatly 1 1/2" square down from the 4" original size. Tiles where cut and incased in a frame work that was arc welded all the way around so no oxygen could get in. The piece was them dry welded but only hit from the ends to weld the tiles to each other. The incasing frame was then cut away from the tiles. A successful weld and the frame is cut away from the tiles.Center core and wrap pieces
The tiles where ground to the shape that I wanted the bowie to be. I then forged a w’s twist to 3/8″ that will become the wrap around the buffalo. The top will represent lightning and the bottom prairie grass.
Ready to weldThe wrap pieces where formed around the shape of the buffalo tiles and everything was surface ground and incased in another frame.Installing cover
This is how it looks after welding. Nice and clean and perfect welds. Though it is alot of work I think it gives a super strong weld. The frame had to be band sawed away from the blade and ground to shape.
A closeup of the finished blade after welding. It was cleaned up a little and a light etch was applied.
I miss a lot of steps here but this is the pieces that will make up the Lightning Strike Bowie. All w’s twist damascus fitting, some gold anodized titanium spacers and a Walrus ivory handle.
Here it is assembled, the blade needs etched and the ferrals need fileworked and etched. I will be finishing it up in the next couple day and will post a photo of the completed Bowie. I will be taking it to the ABS show in San Antonio TX in a couple week.
