The steel fittings for this dagger are shaped and ready for bluing. The fittings will remain "in the white" until the ivory handle work is finished. The fittings will be hot caustic blued just before final assembly of the knife.
As I mentioned in my earlier post. The shape of this guard made it impossible for me to do any shaping and finishing with power equipment; so all was done by hand. I only have a few photos to show of the hand finishing process, as there are only a few steps to it; which take hours and hours to complete.
The tools of the trade. Die-sinkers files, RA stones, abrasive tape, sticks with sandpaper attached with double sided Scotch tape, belt sanding sticks and polishing bobs. The cone shaped bob was ground to a small tip to reach into and polish the inside corners under the scroll ends.
Shaping of the guard scrolls is started by sanding the ends of the scrolls. This was done first so that I would know where the finished level of the ends would be.
I marked "cut to" lines on the scrolls by using the brass pattern that I had made earlier. The brass pattern was cut down to the curvature that I wanted along this line. Lay-out dye was applied to the guard and the brass pattern used to scribe the lines. A Foredom tool with a carbide burr is used to rough out the inside contours on the guard scrolls.
Die-sinker's files are used to clean up the burr marks.
Rough cleaning of the tight inside corners of the scrolls is done with abrasive tape.
Once the rough shaping is completed, it is on to sanding sticks, stones and whatever you can use to access the tight areas of the part. After the part is sanded to a fine finish, it is buffed on the bench buffer. This will display all of the scratches that you still have not sanded out adequately; so back to the sanding sticks and stones. Repeat as needed..........
The knife assembled with the completed fittings.
:thumbup:
, and two, I don't know if I have" the patience of Job" that you display.
