OK, the mokume for the guard is in. Mokume Gane is a Japanese metal art form, literally translated the words mean "wood-grain metal". I get quite a few requests for it on the knives I build. Some makers and collectors stay away from it because it will tarnish. This piece was custom made for me to this size by the folks at Jantz Supply, that is to say they had it made for me.
This is three color, twist mokume. It's made with brass, copper and nickle silver. First job, cut it off to length and square up the ends.
I want to make a piercing through the middle of the piece for a few reasons, to add interest to the piece, I want to forge the piece to shape because the texture in the mokume will look very nice if it flows with the shape of the piece. I bought the piece smaller than needed so I could forge it to shape, the piercing helps with that. This would have been a $600.00 piece of mokume if I had bought it to size and milled the center pocket out. I would have had a lot of wasted material from the piercing and the narrowed quillions. Forging to shape saves all that waste. We need to make a slot all the way through the piece, just as if I was going to make the slot for the tang. This material is 3/4 inches by one inch. The best way to make sure the ends of the slot line up exactly when you mill from both sides is to drill holes through the piece at the ends of the slot. The center drill is used to make the hole right on location, and keep it straight.
With the slot all the way through, I built a couple of drifts to make the slot into a diamond shaped hole, like drifting a tomahawk head for the handle. Pictured is the first drift.
The first drift is O1 and it needs to be hardened. I don't want to heat up the forge for just one tool at a time so I get a bunch of stuff ready and harden them all at once.
With the drift hardened, I start the hole with the first drift. The mokume can be cold-forged, it will work-harden and need to be annealed so you have to be careful, it will crack if worked too much without annealing.
The second drift was easier to make, it didn't need to be very long so I ground it out of some high speed steel. It picks up where the first drift finished.
I use the power hammer and home-made fullering dies to fuller the piece on either side of the piercing.
Next I will make a spring swedge to smoosh the piercing tight around the second drift to better refine its shape and to begin to shape the outside of the guard. The shape of the guard is transferred to the pieces for the die.
The band saw is used to cut out the shape.
With the drift in the piercing you get an idea what I am after. Next the dies will be welded to a spring to hold them in alignment when I pound them together with the power hammer.
The spring swedge is ready to go....
and the power hammer does what it does.
The shape is pretty close to what we are looking for.
With a plastic pattern, I transfer the shape to the mokume. The band saw is used to remove most of the extra material and the belt sander gets the rest.
The profile of the guard is pretty close. Next we will cut the slot for the tang, fit the guard to the blade and fit the rest of the handle pieces to tang and the guard.
