Persian Fighter #1-Lots of Filework & Carving

[Osprey Guy]

This one has been on my bench for a long time...I actually started it last Fall but due to a long and difficult illness I only recently was able to get back on it.

Sole Authorship...

Fixed Blade-9 1/2" OA
Forged 5160 (under the watchful eye of Larry Harley)
Hollow Ground, Satin Finish
Fully Fileworked
Heavily Carved 416 spacers
Eggerling Damascus bolsters-front and rear (Nitre Blued on my kitchen stove)
Bark Ivory scales (very white)
Titanium Liners
"Gold" Brass Spacers under the ivory scales (sometimes known as Jeweler's Bronze, meant to simulate 14k in color)
Single fileworked torx screw on each side.

The blade has been fileworked from end to end. The tapered tang made things interesting...I wound up using a calculator and calipers to get the correct proportion for the filework pattern as it got smaller and smaller (pushing my #10 Optivisor to it's limit as it was quite difficult to see what I was doing at that size).

I recently acquired some fantastic miniature, swiss cut needle files from my nearby jewelry supply store. They are 4" in length...far better quality than any miniature files I'd had in the past. They are Half round in both #0 and #2, and Three-Square in both #0 and #2 cut with one side ground as my safety side. I did all the fileowrk with those and then did all the "fine tuning" with 3M polishing papers wrapped around the files, rubber "tadpoles", and other various small objects.

The deeply carved scrolls in the 416 SS were done mostly with my GRS Turbo 850, high speed carver (some filework as well with those miniature files). I've been working hard at improving my scrolls, and I'm pleased with the way they turned out here.

Eggerling Damascus bolsters were blued using Nitre salts at approximately 525 degrees on my kitchen stove.

The entire handle disassembles by first removing the screw on each side. I'm going to try and shoot some photos showing an exploded view of the disassembled handle. I'll post those here when done.

Heat treat was done by Roger Linger to a Rockwell 58.5 (My thanks to Roger for doing such a careful job...Unfortunately for me, Roger has become a fulltime maker and no longer has the time to offer heat treat services).

My thanks to Alan Folts for the offer to 24 ct goldplate the screws...as it turned out, I decided on Stainless screws afterall.

And many, many thanks to Coop for doing such a terrific job photographing my knife while we were at Larry Harley's "Hammerin" this past weekend down in Tennessee (check out all the many photos from that great weekend over in the Outpost Forum over in knifenetwork.com). Coop did the post production Photoshop work on his laptop from his motel room!


Hope you guys like it...

I'd like to shoot some more pix myself, so that I can tighter views of my embellishment work...In the meantime, I rotated and cropped Coop's original image to give you a closer look at the scrolls:

I did take a few quick shots before leaving for my long weekend at Harley's...They were shot "on the fly" and are not very good...but at least you can sorta tell from this image that I fileworked the entire spine:

Thanks for looking...


Dennis Greenbaum

Yeah Baby!

 

[fishface5]

that's SO awesome!!!!!!!! So much work went into that, & it shows.

 

[Daniel Koster]

Amazing work Dennis! Glad to see you "made the leap". Looks like it's really paying off.

Wow....

 

[Icon of Sin]

Dennis, that knife is stunning. Makes me want to start buying fixed blades.

Beautiful work Dennis.

 

[Dave Kelly]

Beautiful knife Dennis!! Please do post the exploded handle views and while you're at it how about a close up of that awesome spine filework and spacer scrolls.
The pictures show a lot but I know there's so much more to see in person.
Very, very now I'm really looking forward to seeing your s.a. folder.
Dave

 

[HJK]

Very beautiful!

 

[Gollnick]

Dennis, let me compliment you on the Persian Fighter. It is a very great piece. For a first sole-authorship piece, it is exceptional and truly shows that you are a person who places very high demands upon yourself and doesn't settle for second-rate results even in a first effort. But, then again, I already knew that.

 

[Fatty_Boomsticks]

Scroll-work is just beautiful.
Astounded that this is '1st solo flight'.
Dennis will no doubt one day be an 'Ace'.

 

[silenthunterstudios]

That master smith stamp is there waiting for you, man, or do you already have it! Stunning.

 

[donutsrule]

Beautiful.

 

[Osprey Guy]

Thanks again for all the kind comments...

That master smith stamp is there waiting for you, man, or do you already have it!

Silverthunderstudios: I spent a lot of time learning to embellish kit knives (In fact, for quite some time I took a fair amount of heat from a lot of guys who wanted to know "when are you going to start making your own?!?"). The way I see it, I simply approached my knifemaking education a little differently than most...

Through my work on the kits I eventually got "real good at handles" ...and then sort of "backed in" to learning about making the blade. I put an extraordinary amount of "educational" time into this blade and while I am very pleased with the outcome, I feel that I still have a very great deal to learn.


Dennis Greenbaum

Yeah Baby!

 

[Keith Montgomery]

You done real good.

Gorgeous! I always knew that you would make fantastic sole authorship knives. Good on ya!