A bowie for 45-70

45-70

45-70

Joined
Jul 10, 2003
Messages
1,601
Well,

The regulars know that I've been lusting after a bowie, a sheffield bowie, but haven't been able to find one that works for me, and for the credit union.

I was reading and found out that many of the old bowie blades were much thinner than modern knives, under 1/10 of an inch. Certainly not all of them, but many of them were that thin, kinda makes sense when you have to carry everything you need, to make stuff as heavy as they need to be, but not an ounce more.

The knife that made Jim Bowie famous was reportedly a butcher's knife. A knife that grew and changed from there, regardless of which history you choose to believe. Butcher's knives are often thin...

I've got a book by Bagwell, about battle knives and devoured the section where he suggests modding a Great Western bowie. $80 is a little steep for a learning project but I thought about Tramontina's machetes being $6 and Tramontina machetes were reportedly around 1/10 of an inch thick....

Seeing where I'm going?
100_0576-11.jpg


I was looking at the end of the knife, at the tip...

just a clip off there.... Lost about 3/4 inch of blade length, but the tip ends up mid blade width...

Sharpen that clip, and the spine of the blade for aways....

Reshape the handle slightly, and use that can of walosi mix in the garage on it....

100_0592.jpg


100_05951.jpg



Using the belt sander (180 Delta) for all the work, except cutting the clip, and final honing of the edge, I'm contemplating putting a choile in and seeing what that does for me. Prior to working on the handle the knife balanced right on the 'm' in Tramontina, now after all the work is done it has moved forward to balance between the 'a' and 'm'.

The blade is 11 1/4 inches long and 16 1/2 total knife length.


What do you all think ?

Most importantly:

I'd love to see HI make these...what are the chances??

(I don't normally change posts, except to edit grammer and spelling, but that first pic will likely change another day this week...)
 
Good stuff, I like it. :thumbup: You can make a nice leather scabbard for it if you like, but if it's going to be a "beater", an old G.I. machete scabbard could be cut down to fit.

Sarge
 
I'm going to get a bowie too one day. I'd like a 6" Sheffield bowie with a nickel silver guard abd an ebony coffin handle. One of these days I'm going to buy a blade and send it over to Dirk to have it finished. Man, that guy does nice work.
 
45/70

I've got a long Mill Bastard file you can have if you want more stock to try again. Like your blade as is.


munk
 
EYE love it!!!!!!!!!!! Damn fine work.

And Hondo.... sweet avatar! Congrats.
 
Looks good, .45-70!

A question: would it be possible for him to heat-treat that thing, if he felt like it? I've long been very intrigued by Alexander Weygers' account of a Filipino smith who differentially-hardened his bolo by heating it to cherry red, then chopping the blade a very short way (maybe 1/4 inch--I forget the specifics, but it was a very short way) into the flesh of a squash (or something like that). Weygers ended up with the bolo, and reported many years of great performance from the blade--chopped mild-steel bolts with it or something, as I recall, with the spine of the blade ending up somewhat mushroomed from blows on the back. Would such a technique work for .45-70's Tramontina bowie? Would you have to do anything special, like grind back the edge first so as to leave an edge less likely to crack? Any other suggestions?

And if he wanted to install a guard, any suggestions as to how?
 
Good idea and good implementation.

Laci Szabo was doing this a while ago, regrinding inexpensive machetes into camp-type knives and selling them for $40 or so. I looked on his website and he doesn't seem to be doing it now. It's still a good idea but probably not a great moneymaker.

A knife like that can do a lot of work. Steel is soft, but that discussion is going in another thread.
 
45-70 said:
What do you all think ?
Click to expand...

Me Likey except for having so much of the spine sharpened but that's because of the way I sometimes use a knife such as that.
I like to use the spine as an extra grip when using a large knife as a drawknife but if I were you and had a need for it to be sharp then I'd do exactly as you have done.:thumbup: :cool: :D
The Iron Mistress that only 200 were made a while back is just a tad less than 3/16" thick and with the 11-3/4" X 2-5/16" wide blade it still weighs in at 22 ounces.
If it were a 1/4" thick it might still be carryable but at 5/16" or thicker it would start being way too heavy.
The big Bowies I made as a young man out of car springs weren't any thicker than the springs themselves but were damned tough and held a plenty good edge.:thumbup: ;) :D :cool:

Edit:
All of the reproduction Bowies made by this outfit were made of 1060 steel. The Iron Mistress has a really nice hardening line and is probably considerably harder than the original. It takes a good stone to "git r done. ;) :)
 
Thank you all for your comments.

Sarge, I already started on the sheath, I didn't make it out of a thicker hide, but experiemented with a thinner belly piece. I think it'll need more work before it is ready to be seen :o I also thought of someone making a PVC sheath for a knife in the past. That might work as well.

Return of J.D., Is that a movie reference or a reference to something you drink ? Anyway, I suspect that it (the machete) was hardened to some point or another before I got it. I would suspect that you could use the teapot like the kami's or else quench the edge only.

Hondo, me too! But I want a 8 inch blade with a more gradual point. I think next payday I'll order more of these machetes and play with the layout of the point. perhaps a flatter longer clip...

Munk, thanks for you kindness as always. This is part of my education, been looking for a local supplier of carbon steel .20 inches thick, three inches wide and perhaps 30 inches long...

Howard, Laci Szabo isn't a name that I recognize for some reason, but I'll look into it.

Yvsa, Normally I would agree, but I figure that they was a reason they were made this way. Just from playing with it I wonder if they used the finer main edge for softer cutting (Meat, softer materials) and the steeper edge on the back was used more for harder cuts. For opening splits in larger pieces of woodthat could be wedged open more easily. I remember in a thread in am un-recalled forum that was the suggestion for reducing the size of wood in a more primitive manner. basically using the knife to create a check in the end of the wood, then using wooden glutes to split out what is needed. Chopping through joints on food animals would be hard on a finer edge, but the back edge should be much stronger.

However this way would be extremely challenging to use as a drawknife.

DIJ, if you read this do you think you can teach a fat slow gajin how to do a back cut one day?

Andy, Sam, and Mike. Thank you for the comments!
 
45-70 said:
Yvsa, Normally I would agree, but I figure that they was a reason they were made this way. Just from playing with it I wonder if they used the finer main edge for softer cutting (Meat, softer materials) and the steeper edge on the back was used more for harder cuts. For opening splits in larger pieces of woodthat could be wedged open more easily. I remember in a thread in am un-recalled forum that was the suggestion for reducing the size of wood in a more primitive manner. basically using the knife to create a check in the end of the wood, then using wooden glutes to split out what is needed. Chopping through joints on food animals would be hard on a finer edge, but the back edge should be much stronger.
Click to expand...

45-70 you're quite right about the double edges. At one time the double eged dagger was a very popular style knife in the west. IIRC it was Davy Crockett that carried such a dagger. One side was sharpened thin and mean and the other thick and mean. The thin and mean side was reserved for fine use only.:thumbup: :cool: :D

Did I give you ideas posting a pic of the iron Mistress? ;) :D
 
Ok I like it..:D

Once I get over my "thing" with Nessmucks, I might just have to give something like this a try!


10oz all the way on the leather...and a full welt...if ya feel me!;)
 
Yvsa said:
45-70 you're quite right about the double edges. At one time the double eged dagger was a very popular style knife in the west. IIRC it was Davy Crockett that carried such a dagger. One side was sharpened thin and mean and the other thick and mean. The thin and mean side was reserved for fine use only.:thumbup: :cool: :D

Did I give you ideas posting a pic of the iron Mistress? ;) :D
Click to expand...

Graceful knives always give me ideas :)

I think that it was Danny that said something along the lines of if you handle a tool (a knife, or a weapon) it will tell you how to use it. That, and much reading here, there, and everywhere lead me to the rest of it :)
 
Your bowie is just fine. I think that it's very much along the same lines, philosophically, of the original knives of that style.
 
45-70, you are going to love that knife! I have one of those Tramontina machettes, and they are really well made. It is amazing what can be bought for so little, if it is not "in style".

Your changes look good. Bet it's sharp as well, mine takes a great edge
 
Nice work. How stiff is the blade?

A question: Why isn't the H.I. "crow" knife considered a bowie? It looks a helluva lot closer than a lot of bowie-designated blades I've seen.
 
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