Had to post this one!
W2 blade. 7 inches long and 12 inch overall length. Flame design in the Hamon.
Dyed elk antler handle with copper and brass furniture. Twisted brass wire for the spacers.
This blade was thrown into the recycle bin after I screwed up while dialing in the plunge cut. I followed the tang/blade transition line on one side instead of the plunge cut line I planned and executed on the other side. I.E. I had a mismatched plunge profile on each side of the blade. The edge was too thin for me to try and true up the other side so I was stuck with it. The mismatched plunge plus the ugly hamon (at the time) caused me to throw it into the recycle bin in disgust. 2 weeks free time gone (yeah, I'm slow, this was my most "forged to shape" blade to date)!
The next day I was cutting a piece of steel to forge into the replacement blade when I remembered an elk antler dyeing experiment that I considered a failure at the time. I thought the discarded blade and antler piece might make a good frontier style knife. I little imprecision is part of a frontier knife, right??? I put the two together, thought about it, and pulled out some copper pipe and fittings that I had been holding onto. I forged most of the copper for the knife that afternoon. First time working copper. Copper is fun, easy to work and you can play with the heat coloring.
Anyway, here is the result. This was a fun project. I added things as they came to me rather than overthinking the design as I do on most projects.
The first two pics show the blade and hamon. You can see the mismatched plunge :grumpy:. The hamon was redone 4 more times to get this final effect. I learned I COULD reharden a blade that had a fully ground edge if using quench oil. My previous failed attempts with this thin a blade used canola oil. Also learned about the tendency of water quenched steel to bend tip down (not up) when quenched in oil. Multiple attempts and the hamon design made this worse, each attempt moved the tip downwards a little more. The raised clip was concave as originally ground. Not straight (slightly convex) as in the final blade.
The middle pic shows my attempt at a carved brass Celtic knot on the pommel. Lots of work for something that looks like a $3 craft store purchase. But I was generally pleased with the result.
The last pic shows the sheath. It is dyed rawhide with a veg tan core. The beads are elk antler tine with brass and copper tubing and some elk hair thrown on. The medallion is a piece of copper pipe beaten and folded over on itself multiple times until it was a bar of copper foil. I added a brass rod down the middle and saturated the whole thing with black epoxy. The overall effect is a bit like copper damascus or mokume.
These two pics show the guard area in more detail. I used Nick Wheelers press fit process for the guard. Much easier and cleaner than 100% filing. But the thin copper wanted to bend out of shaper during the press.
Pic of the stand. Was trying to think of some way to display the knife, its going to a non-knife family member. None of my ideas fit the bill. Then I was cutting up some weather root wood (driftwood) my wife wanted out of the landscape and realized the branches might be good on a knife stand. This is the result. My first knife stand. The remaining driftwood is now hidden in the yard. I can get a couple more stands out of it, and working with the wood gave me ideas for future woodworking projects. The weathered wood may prove to be a useful resource.
Now I need to find knife time to complete the design I originally had planned.
Thanks for looking!
Barry Vaske
W2 blade. 7 inches long and 12 inch overall length. Flame design in the Hamon.
Dyed elk antler handle with copper and brass furniture. Twisted brass wire for the spacers.
This blade was thrown into the recycle bin after I screwed up while dialing in the plunge cut. I followed the tang/blade transition line on one side instead of the plunge cut line I planned and executed on the other side. I.E. I had a mismatched plunge profile on each side of the blade. The edge was too thin for me to try and true up the other side so I was stuck with it. The mismatched plunge plus the ugly hamon (at the time) caused me to throw it into the recycle bin in disgust. 2 weeks free time gone (yeah, I'm slow, this was my most "forged to shape" blade to date)!
The next day I was cutting a piece of steel to forge into the replacement blade when I remembered an elk antler dyeing experiment that I considered a failure at the time. I thought the discarded blade and antler piece might make a good frontier style knife. I little imprecision is part of a frontier knife, right??? I put the two together, thought about it, and pulled out some copper pipe and fittings that I had been holding onto. I forged most of the copper for the knife that afternoon. First time working copper. Copper is fun, easy to work and you can play with the heat coloring.
Anyway, here is the result. This was a fun project. I added things as they came to me rather than overthinking the design as I do on most projects.
The first two pics show the blade and hamon. You can see the mismatched plunge :grumpy:. The hamon was redone 4 more times to get this final effect. I learned I COULD reharden a blade that had a fully ground edge if using quench oil. My previous failed attempts with this thin a blade used canola oil. Also learned about the tendency of water quenched steel to bend tip down (not up) when quenched in oil. Multiple attempts and the hamon design made this worse, each attempt moved the tip downwards a little more. The raised clip was concave as originally ground. Not straight (slightly convex) as in the final blade.
The middle pic shows my attempt at a carved brass Celtic knot on the pommel. Lots of work for something that looks like a $3 craft store purchase. But I was generally pleased with the result.
The last pic shows the sheath. It is dyed rawhide with a veg tan core. The beads are elk antler tine with brass and copper tubing and some elk hair thrown on. The medallion is a piece of copper pipe beaten and folded over on itself multiple times until it was a bar of copper foil. I added a brass rod down the middle and saturated the whole thing with black epoxy. The overall effect is a bit like copper damascus or mokume.
These two pics show the guard area in more detail. I used Nick Wheelers press fit process for the guard. Much easier and cleaner than 100% filing. But the thin copper wanted to bend out of shaper during the press.
Pic of the stand. Was trying to think of some way to display the knife, its going to a non-knife family member. None of my ideas fit the bill. Then I was cutting up some weather root wood (driftwood) my wife wanted out of the landscape and realized the branches might be good on a knife stand. This is the result. My first knife stand. The remaining driftwood is now hidden in the yard. I can get a couple more stands out of it, and working with the wood gave me ideas for future woodworking projects. The weathered wood may prove to be a useful resource.
Now I need to find knife time to complete the design I originally had planned.
Thanks for looking!
Barry Vaske
