First off, Thank you all for the kind and generous comments! I don't mind at all sharing more information about the knife.
The knife is a collaboration of a Client's ideas, and my interpretation of them. The Client saw another bowie that I made, which was similar, but with all blued hardware. The titanium fittings and an overall "subdued" appearance was his desire. I must admit, creating those titanium fittings was just flat hard work. It was definitely one of those knives that each component was created individually, and then fitted and assembled.
The most difficult part for me was the guard...it started out as .240 thickness, I milled an undersized slot, then spent about a day with various files, creating a tapered slot to fit the tang. (when I make a guard, the hole is tapered with the widest area at the rear, tapering to the front.) This allows me to "cheat" a little bit in that I will file the slot until its about 1/2" from fitting up on the blade, then using a tool I made from micarta, I "drive" the guard the rest of the way on. With guard materials like NS, steel, or any other, that is softer than the tang, the guard opening will deform to fit every tiny contour of the tang....giving a gap free fit. The Titanium won't do that....it was nearly a day long process to get the titanium guard to fit correctly.
The "fossil damascus" is created from all the leftovers from accordion cutting mosaic billets. For a long time I was taking all those pieces to the scrapyard when I cleaned the shop....seemed like a huge waste. Anyway, I decided to give something a try..... I filled a 4X4x6long" square "can" with the pieces, and used 1084 powder to fill all of the air space. The first couple of times, I wrecked the "cans"....but finally learned how to "work" them. The name came from a friend...he was in the shop one day when I was etching a blade made from the material, and made the comment "That looks like fossils that you see in rocks along rivers." Hence the name. Up until recently I was forging out the "fossil damascus" billets, and then accordion folding them.....but that just created more waste. So, the last few times I've made it, I've forged HUGE billets (15" long X 6" wide X 1 1/2" thick), and took them to a local waterjet outfit, and had them slice the billets for me. At first I tried to cut it on my bandsaw, but that just didn't work..... I just couldn't manage a billet that big and bulky.
The waterjet outfit did the slicing, and now I basically have barstock of the material, and just go to the forge with it like I would any other piece of steel.
The handle is Blackwood, which I like very much because it takes the carving and texturing very well, without checking or "tearing". All the the handle work was done freehand with a GRS 850 rotary tool. Same for the sheath.
The overall finish was also at the client's request. He wanted something "nice" but with a somewhat subdued appearance. Although I thought about bead blasting the Ti fittings, I chose to use a "carding wheel" (very fine SS brush/wheel).
If I didn't cover something, please let me know, I'm more than happy to share.
Roger.....I'll try to get some more pics taken before I ship it out.
Again, thanks for all the kinds comments!
.
Sorry, I'm being nosey again...
