Damascus Integral Bird and Trout WIP

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Hi all, I was contacted sometime back by a fellow forum member ( Jim Johnson ) to build him a custom knife. We talked quite a bit he was intially wanting maybe a hunter and asked to see some pics, I directed him to one I just completed to show the damascus pattern to see if he liked something like this,

Here is the knife I showed Jim,

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Well Jim really liked this knife so with some more talking we decided to build a similar knife.

So let the build begin.
 
OK build time, first up I forged out the "W" Pattern billet for another knife but had plenty for this knife. I had showed this billet earlier but here is the pic anyway,

Here we started with this really compressed "W" pattern,

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Here we have a few forging pics,

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Cooking the blade in one of Dave Lisch's forges :D,

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Here you will notice the rod is still attached from when I forged the block out,

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Checking to see how the forging is going against a sketch I did on my anvil,

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Rod has been removed and I am working on the profile,

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Here I wanted to take a peek at what we had so far I also used my CNC Mill to set the front and back of the bolsters so they are even,

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Now I start shaping the bolsters using files,

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Here is where we are now. I have surface ground the tang located the pin holes and have shaped the front of the bolsters. Also had the wife include the beautiful stag I got from Alpha Knife Supply for this build,

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Hopefully I will get this heat treated before I have to head of to California in a few days.
 
Thanks guys hopefully I can restrain myself from screwing it up. I was going to post a live thread but did not want to get everyone excited then ruin it and have to start over kind of thing but I guess that would not have been bad either as it would show that does happen and we can all learn from it.
 
Karl for me to inspire an artist of your talent, to me is a big compliment. Thanks, now get working on your inspiration :p.
 
Thanks Dave, about time you found this thread :p. This morning we had to head to L.A., Barb has a Dr. appointment Friday so we will be here till Saturday. I will be heat treating this blade when we get back so stay tuned :D.
 
Cool thread Mike. I look forward to the next steps.
Hope you have a safe and enjoyable drive coming back home.
 
Dear Mike is always very exciting to see a WIP. I think we all like to see how it's done. Impressive accuracy of its forging. You are very skillful. I want too see this knife ready. I am at your disposal my friend.
All the best and God blesses.
Eduardo Berardo
 
Thanks Mark

Eduardo your skill is remarkable, I hope that one day I maybe as skilled as you are my friend.

Well we made it back from L.A. yesterday. So today I went over to my friend Gene Martin's house and used his heat treat oven to heat treat this knife. I tried something new for me I used a anti scale compound from Brownells and was quite impressed with it. So lets see some pics,

Here the knife has been heated to 500ºF and already has the first coat of the anti scale compound.

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Putting on the second coat,

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My friend Gene heating the oil up, just ain't no fun with out a little fire for the camera,

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Coming out of the furnace after a 10 minute soak at 1500ºF (steel is O1 and 8670M in case I forgot to mention it),

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Into the oil we go,

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After this I am really liking this anti scale compound, wish I found this stuff a long time ago,

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More to come this week.
 
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