Dark Dagger with flaming ebony handle WIP

keithf

keithf

Joined
May 29, 2006
Messages
992
Some time ago I posted a photo of a hunter that I did a carving of flames on and was asked by quite a few if I would do a WIP on my method.
I also took some pics of the build along the way ( as usual please forgive my lack of photography skills )
Thanks for looking and comments welcome.
Cheers Keith.
I already had a damascus billet ready to go for a dagger so I don't have any pics of that but to give you the heads up its a Ws firestorm pattern. For those who are not aware of that pattern, make a billet of Ws, twist, resquare, cut down the centre, flip it, so now the interior of the billet is on the outside, reweld and forge the blade. You have to forge the bevels down as much as possible, otherwise when you grind it you could cut back into the exterior of the pattern and ruin the effect.
So here we are forged, normalised and annealed, ready for the tidy up with the 9" grinder and the linisher.

Annealing the blade, you can see on the right hand side of the forge the thermo couple so I know for sure when its cooked.

After its cleaned up its off to the linisher, file the shoulders for the guard etc, etc, Quench and temper, back to the linisher to 400 grit. Now its time to do some hand work. As you can see I rub the blade on the paper. I find I have a lot more contol this way and imo makes the job a lot quicker. You can see I have a temporary handle ( makes it easier to hang onto ) and a thin piece of leather that I wrap the blade with ( this is so I wont cut myself during the hand sanding process) this blade is flat ground with a convex edge, so its already pretty sharp.


I finished the hand sanding ( polishing ) at 1500 grit, degreased and now its into the magic revealo juice ( Ferric Chloride )

After being in the ferric for a minute or so I clean off the oxides produced by the ferric under running water with some 0000 steel wool, repeat the process until I'm happy with the depth of the etch. Neutralise with windex and hand finish at 3000 grit.
.
Well thats enough for now ( I type at about 1 word a minute ) I have to go and do some real work, Cheers
 
Thanks for taking the time to post this....that looks to be quite the fine dagger blade. :)
 
YEAH! Can't wait for more :)
your sanding technique is awesome, can't wait to give er a try.
 
Hey , thanks very much guys. Lorien, it works for me and the discovery of Rhynowet paper makes it a breeze ( well it shortens up the process imo ) Not in the same ballpark as you Mike.

So to continue. Time to knock out some fittings. I made some square bar out of some round bar.

Cleaned it up on the surface grinder then on to the mill, I'm making the spacer integral with the guard and while it was on there I slotted it.


Do some shaping on the linisher and some hand files.



I was going to leave it at this profile , but it just didn't suit the blade. So with the aid of the oxy I gave it a tweek or 2 or more to get it right.

A bit of cleaning up with the flexi shaft , spiral bands and assorted other bits and then polish.

Get a square piece of Ebony and dill a hole through it for the tang. Do some file work to fit it and scribe my center and taper lines and remove the bulk on the linisher.


Refine the shape with some files and paper up to 1500 grit. I rub some Danish oil in with 1500 grit paper and wipe off the residue, leave it a couple of hours and repeat a couple of times, fills the grain nicely.

A bit more later, Cheers
 
Thanks for the WIP Keith, I've really been looking forward to this! A dagger too...VERY cool:D
 
Thanks for taking the time to show your work....Looks Great !
 
Great stuff my far away friend! :cool:

I've forged quite a few daggers, so I know forging a wonkey corkscrew is pretty easy... but forging a nice symmetrical dagger, and so close to shape, like yours is a hard thing to pull off--- NICE!!! :)

"magic revealo juice" Oh that gave me a good laugh! I'm going to be borrowing that one from 'ya Keith. :D

Love your (1-2-3 block + T nut studs) pin bending jig... GREAT idea. Right along with the 1-2-3 block handle working fixture. :thumbup:

Great stuff Keith, thanks! :)

And nice hammer!!! :cool:
 
Really enjoying this, Keith. The shop, the process, and the knife are all a pleasure to see.

Curious about your "linisher" - is that Aussie for what us Americans call a grinder?
 
Hello Keith!

Thank you for sharing your work - very interesting read so far!

Regards,
Alex
 
Now lets see if I can attach the vid. In this I do 2 different methods that are not outlined in my professional commentry :eek: One is cutting the geooves with a triangular file the other is using a blade shaped burr. Enjoy.
[video=youtube_share;sRm10YXSWno]http://youtu.be/sRm10YXSWno[/video]
 
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