Mini-Musso phase one

[jdm61]

I had soeone ask me if I could make them a Musso bowie. Fortunately, he is not in a hurry As I feel that the Southwest style bowie with its curved spine and big belly has some potential for screwups that cannot be easily fixed by laying the edge and spine oon the KMG platen and maing them parallel, i figured that I would tackle a smaller example before going on to making one with a 13-14 inch blade. Here is the result of my experiment after forging anealing profiling and rough grinding with 36 grit. Still plenty of chances to screw it up, but I am rather please so far.
specs
9" blade of W2 forged pretty close to final shape
a healthy 1/4 thick and 1 3/4 wide.
Hidden tang I will probably got with 1018 fixtures and either blue or mustard finish them.

 

[LRB]

There must be something in the water. I also recieved an order for the Musso. Would you like a color photo of it?

 

[GrayWall04]

It looks a lot closer to the real thing then the one I'm making for myself. But, that's the fun in making knives I think. How are you going to attach the brass to the back I've not got a clue how to do that except braze it on, which I've never brazed anything.

 

[jdm61]

It looks a lot closer to the real thing then the one I'm making for myself. But, that's the fun in making knives I think. How are you going to attach the brass to the back I've not got a clue how to do that except braze it on, which I've never brazed anything.

No brass for me, my man. It ended up being a "southwestern" with a straight 1018 oval guard and ferrule and no buttcap on the slightly off handle.....curses.....lol. The bigger one will have the S-guard and buttcap of 1018, and no brass back strip. This is how the first one ended up. Ok except for the handle being off. The guard was etched/cold blued and "carded" with 0000 steel wool after ever dip. This gave me a kind of "French gray" look which I like. The blade was my first bad attempt at etching. You can barely see the very fuzzy hamon in the pic.

 

[KLOW]

Looks good Joe, can't wait to see the scaled up version!

 

[jdm61]

Looks good Joe, can't wait to see the scaled up version!

I am in the process of forging what should be an 11-12 x 2 1/4-2 3/8 inch version right now out of 3/8 W2. I quote that size range because i am not sure how much more I can draw it out. I have a bit of taper in it and the point and tang are roughed out. (my arm gave out after doing the tang....lol) It is still the full 3/8 up where the tang starts and about 1 5/16 wide. The blade on the first knife is a tiny hair under 9 inches long for comparison.

 

[Bailey Knives]

I am going to start a fund drive for you to purchase a digital camera. Your knives look very nice, but I think they would look 10X better with a 3 megapixel camera.

 

[jdm61]

I have a Sony camera, but I lost the cord I am going to have my brother take some pics of the bowie, the Kith knife and one other fighter on his super-duper Nikon digital SLR camera this weekend so you will be able to see all of the warts. Then you will understand why I use the webcam.......lol.