Mark Bartlett S-Guard Bowie - Abbreviated WIP

RogerP

RogerP

Joined
Feb 28, 2002
Messages
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Greetings all,

Mark's work first came to my attention in last year's Best Bowie thread when he posted up this cool spear point bowie:

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Which somehow looked even cooler in takedown view:

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Which led me to find out a bit more about his work, wherein I stumbled across this: :eek:

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... and thought to myself, how does a bladesmith have this type of skill and I don't know about it? :confused:

And my next thought was to remedy that regrettable circumstance. On Facebook, I came across this pic of long, lean 1075 blade that Mark had forged out but not finished:

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Which prompted to me inquire as to whether it was spoken for. It wasn't. So I spoke. :D

Never let it be said that Mark approaches a project without a plan ;) :

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Okay the real plan was to finish out the blade, then craft an elegant S-guard with a frame handle, titanium spacers and liners, and killer Koa scales:

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And Mark had a special plan in mind for the fittings, but we'll come to that later.
 
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^^^ Cheers my man. The completed knife shown is from last year - it's the one that inspired the present build. More to come presently.
 
thanks for the WiP, Rog!
 
Anyone who references Edward Braun is going to probably:

a) do very clean work
b) going to make it fun.

Looking forward to this.
 
Cheers gents. Onward we go.

Mark's description of the next series of pics:

"Laid out the guard, drilled and fitted the spacers, and profiled them. Still have to make up my mind what I want to do with the guard ends. Right now the spacers are within .003” of being perfectly even to both sides of the guard. Guard flats are as dead even as I can measure. I’m shooting for a handle that is really thin behind the guard. I’ll leave it slightly proud of the frame and spacers and it should have a nice feel."

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The pic below took us to just before the Blade Show:

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Mark was encouraged to take the unfinished knife to Blade for some feedback, which turns out to have been a good thing (how could it be otherwise with so much talent and wisdom and experience around you?).

Mark recounts the experience:

"Home sweet home after a tiring weekend. Three long days of walking around learning. Glad I’m not a table holder, I’d have never learned as much. I left for Atlanta for Blade Show knowing there would be great makers there with some great knives. I constantly had people telling me they liked what I was doing and what I was making... but. To stand in front of tables with some of these people and meet folks that I had only ever known online, and to hold their work, look it over, and ask questions, was humbling. Sometimes you get to where you think you’re doing something well and then a masters work reminds you that you still have a LOOOOOOOONG way to go. For that I should thank Karl B. Andersen for convincing me to bring an unfinished knife to Blade. Having a bunch of the MS and JS folks handing it around and picking it apart was priceless. Picking out little things that I didn’t notice or just didn’t know about. While the overall reaction was that it was good work, there are subtle things that will make it better. Comments on construction and ideas that I’ve had got tossed around through what I consider some of the greatest makers I could imagine or ever hope to meet. Some that I’ve called and talked with, some that I call friends, some that I’ve seen online, and even some that I had heard of but never saw much from till their work was laid on the table. To all of you, thank you. Without touching a grinder or a mill or a file, I’m a better maker now than I was when I left for the drive south.

And... none of this would have been possible without Raymond Hammond and some of his friends. I’d have made it to Blade, but it would have been an entirely different experience. Ray, Karl, and Brian Thie made this the best first Blade Show experience I could have asked for. Thank you. Now it’s time to start fixing some of these things that slipped through the cracks......

Dirty blade, covered in the fingerprints of some of the greatest makers I know. Marks that I’ve put down to make some subtle changes and fix some things. Some that I just hadn’t gotten to and some that I hadn’t thought about. Either way, there are changes coming that will make the difference between a good knife and a gooder knife. (I’m not great...) Find some of these folks when you want to get better. Don’t fear criticism and critique. This has been through the hands of Lin Rhea, Mike Quesenberry, Veronique Laurent, Jean-Louis Regal, Karl Andersen, Jim Rodebaugh, and Kyle Gahagan as well as a few others. Each had some comments and advice. First thing Friday morning, it’s time for making changes. It just keeps getting better..."

And starting to implement those changes as described and shown below:

"Thinned and narrowed the guard and guard shield and re centered the lower guard lug, ground a near full length swedge on the blade, lowered the butt of the frame, cleaned up the guard shoulders, and got some other tidbits done."

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That long swedge was absolutely the right call, IMO.

Another look at the frame:

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Starting to look more like a handle with the first peek at the Koa scales.

"Cap over the butt is fitted. The final screws will be recessed into the cap after it’s profiled. Still have to do some fine tuning with it and finish trimming the scales."

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DO NOT drive yourselves to distraction trying to click the pic below - it is NOT a video, but a screencap that parovides a glimpse of just how sweet the Koa scales are.

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Roger LOVES his Koa. :cool: As he should.

So inspired. I love the thinning and reshaping after Blade Show. Masterful.

Coop
 
Looking more like a knife now. Love the coming right at you perspective of the first pic - looks like a freaking sword!

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You'd be forgiven for thinking the knife was done at this point, but you'd be so wrong. Lots more to come.
 
Mark decided that while he liked the fittings well enough, there were two significant embellishments he wanted to add to elevate the piece overall. The first was to ad a stippled texture to the guard to give it some added visual dimension.

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Butt cap also got the treatment:

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Which brings us to a knife that now looks even more deceptively complete, but still has a significant to-do list:

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That filework on frame.... very familiar pattern to me. Well done. :thumbsup: ;)
 
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