Bill Burke Builds Blue Blade

mckgreg

mckgreg

Joined
Nov 18, 2001
Messages
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Bill put together this Nitre-Blued multiple steel damascus fella and used a piece of Musk Ox horn tip I sent him.The blade is right at 3 1/8" and the knife is about 6 3/4" overall. A nice little knife.
Greg
 
That boy sure knows how to make them knives :eek: :D Bill keeps pushing the limits and his knives just keep getting better and I thought I had the best one!!! :D Thanks for sharing this Greg. Is it yours?


Dean
 
Yep, it's mine. Glad ya like it. Bill did a great job on this one. He told me the different steels used in the damascus but I just don't remember which ones. Here's another shot of it.
Greg
 
I really like that knife - a lot! The combination of colors in the blade - the purples, maroons, and bronze - look really great with that brass guard, which, in turn, also looks real nice with the handle materials. All around, that knife just has a great look to it. And based upon what we know of this fine maker's work, performance should be exceptional too.

Yeah, I may be a bit jealous :D
 
Absolutely flat azz gorgeous knife!

I do, however, wonder about the blue colors on the blade. How do the blue colors affect the performance?
 
Danbo said:
Absolutely flat azz gorgeous knife!

I do, however, wonder about the blue colors on the blade. How do the blue colors affect the performance?
Click to expand...

Those were my thoughts exactly. First off, it's a gorgeous knife that I would be proud to own. I have heard it suggested, however, that bluing will diminish cutting performance by a small, though measurable amount. Not sure it would be my first choice for a hunter. But then again, this one is clearly in the "presentation" catgeory and the "wow" factor of the bluing is considerable.

Cheers,

Roger
 
There was a great discussion about that in the CKDforums recently. It's largely a function of how high a temp you heat the salts. Perhaps Mr. Burke will chime in with some details?
 
I really like that blade too. What I like about Bill's work is that his blades hold an edge and are easy to sharpen, which IMHO is what every custom should do.
 
Thanks for all the compliments guys. The blade is made up of two diferent kinds of damascus. It was blued in Nitre salts. I put it in at a lower heat and hold it there longer then the normal way of bluing. This one was held at 400 degrees for one hour to get the color that I was satisfied with. I had to temper it at 425 to get it to pass the brass rod test so I don't believe that I hurt it any by doing the bluing. I havn't been able to get damascuss to cut as good as 52100 But this little blade will cut one lay out of a one inch rope (hemp) until you can't hang onto it any more. That was some where around 175 cuts for me. the steel in the blade is L6, 1095, 15N20 and 1084. You can't tell in the picture but what looks like a solid core is actually random damascus also.

Bill

P.S. My puter crashed a couple of days ago and I lost all of my email address' So drop me a line so that I can reestablish communications with ya all.
 
You've got potential... :eek:

Seriously though, that's some damn fine work buddy, and thanks for the thorough analysis of the processes and metals used too!

Outstanding :D

Mel
 
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