my first bowie (ALL DONE, PIX ADDED)

T

The_cutting_edge

Joined
May 25, 2009
Messages
389
Hey all, A guy I work with asked me to make him a bowie knife. I figgured I'd do a WIP.
he wanted an 8" blade and a 4.5" handle. I started with a 3/16" X 1.5" piece of 440C and got the profile ground. didnt want to spend too much time in the shop tonight as it is valentines day and all.... good thing my wife loves me :D
here's where I'm at so far
IMG_0259.jpg

IMG_0257.jpg

will work on the bevels tomorow
 
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Very nice, that's right up my alley. Looking forward to this one.
 
The guy wants dyed purple stabilized maple burl....

I got the bevels roughed in tonight, started with 80 grit then once I got them started switched to 120 grit. tomorow night I'll take it up to 400 grit and straighten up the grind lines, fix up the plunges and decide wether I want to file in the swedge / clip point.
here's where it's at
IMG_0260.jpg

IMG_0261.jpg

getting there but still a bunch of work to do
thanks for looking
J.leclair
 
Man, I'm diggin on that! Looks more massive than it probably feels. I really like the flow into the handle area and the extra long clip as well. I'm looking forward to this one:)
 
thanks for the kind words. the edge is still a bit thicker than a nickle and I havn't skeletonized the tang yet so it still feel's pretty beefy.
still cant decide wether I want to do a false edge along the clip, the shape of tthe clip has me confused on how I would pull it off
 
Looking at how far the main bevel comes up the grind, I don't know that I would do anything. It looks great just the way it is. I would do some simple filework on the spine right behind the clip, and maybe leave it at that. I don't know how you feel about them, but I would definitely add a choil, just a small one, right where the plunge is at. The more I look at it though, the more I love it!!
 
Well, spent another night in the shop. made some good progress tonight. decided not to no a swedge clip on this one and went ahead and pushed the grind almost all the way to the spine. now remember that I use a 10" cone-loc drum sander to grind my knives so a full height grind on 1.5" stock takes some work (well for me anyway lol) here's the pics
IMG_0263.jpg

IMG_0262.jpg

you might see in the first pic I have scribed in the location for the pin holes. have to find out what size pin stock and what material the customer wants. tomorow night will be doing some hand sanding, drilling holes and hopefully will be ready to send out for HT by the weekend.
thanks for looking
J.leclair
 
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forgot to mention, this is the first time I have added a choil to any of my knives. Is it too small should I enlarge it with a bigger round file? I think I like the look but it seems it maybe out of proportion to the size of the blade... what do you guys think?
 
Its hard to say. The whole purpose of a choil is to allow you to sharpen the entire blade, more or less. If you want it to be bigger, I would recommend you draw it on with a sharpie first. That way you can tell exactly how big you want it. Some people like choils, others don't. I personally love them.
 
I'm not talking about taking the half round file to it but instead of the needle file I used, mabye a chainsaw file... I dunno it's more than lkely just because the blade is alot bigger tha what I'm used to making paired with never having done a sharpening notch making me second guess myself.
 
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I feel that a chainsaw file makes an awfully slick choil. That's what I use on most of my knives. It especially looks nice on a bigger blade. I think either way you'll make the right call.
 
It's looking great man! Looking forward to seeing some more updates
 
Thanks, the wife wanted me to take a night or 2 off, there will be more progress tonight. I have the hole pattern layed out on the tang, and will start the pre HT hand sanding to fix up a couple small wobbles in the grind lines
 
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