Random Damascus San mai with koa(WIP)

S.Alexander said:
I like spacers on hidden tangs. I think a piece of copper or brass would look good with the stag. If you don't have copper sheet, you can always cut a piece of pipe or a copper fitting and hammer it flat.

Looking really good there.


Here's one of mine with a spacer.

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Nice knife Shane. I still haven't decided what I'm going to do yet. I'm just really afraid of the antler shrinking and causing gaps.
 
Wow, Kevin, this is commin along great!

Not sure if you want to go about it on this blade considering how close to finished you are, but If you harden (and temper) the guard, the pattern will look better due to the plain carbon steel being able to etch darker, thus having more contrast after you etch it. Another plus is that it will become more wear resistant. :)

Keep the pics commin! :thumbup:

~Paul
My YT Channel Lsubslimed
 
coldsteelburns said:
Wow, Kevin, this is commin along great!

Not sure if you want to go about it on this blade considering how close to finished you are, but If you harden (and temper) the guard, the pattern will look better due to the plain carbon steel being able to etch darker, thus having more contrast after you etch it. Another plus is that it will become more wear resistant. :)

Keep the pics commin! :thumbup:

~Paul
My YT Channel Lsubslimed
Click to expand...

I'll be hardening the guard and pommel this week after I get the pommel shaped and fabricated. The Damascus is 1050 and 4340. The edge of the guard where I laminated the guard doesn't take a very deep etch. I'm not sure if I should use ferric or another etchant. Either way that's what the goals are for this coming week. The knife may look close to done but I assure you it's far off.
 
S.Alexander said:
Some guys will bevel the edge of their handle where it meets the spacer. This creates an intentional gap and I'd the antler moves slightly on you, it won't be noticeable.

Here's a visual example of what I'm talking about. http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php/1262562-Damascus-and-Walnut-Hunter
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Thanks Shane.
This is where I've been drawing a lot of my inspiration.
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/s...damascus-show-me-yours-and-I-ll-show-you-mine
 
Well chalk one up for the knife making gods. First the drill bit walked and pierced the antler, so I cut it shorter to see if I liked it, well that worked out fairly well, so I started shaping and noticed a crack that was in one of the valleys of the antler texture. So I'm throwing away the antler piece. Now this knife is a barter for a family member and I don't want to spare any expense so I have decided to go with a piece of Amber stag from culpeppers. My question is if I should order a roll, carver, taper, Or a curved stick. At $40 I'd rather not order the wrong one.
Almost got my hand!
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Well change of plans, I'm going to use a block of koa on this. So instead of calling the day a wash I decided to do some work on the guard. I chucked up a dremel wheel in my drill press to get a groove all the way around the guard then filed it with a round file.
A828D392-3E23-4797-8757-71C21F1D1D37.png_zpsf0vymw4p.jpeg

Then I hardened, sanded, and polished the guard.
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Did a quick etch in ferric to see the results. I still have the smallest bit of gap on the shoulders and I'm at a loss as to what is causing it. I have had the guard on and off no less than 50 times. I'm about to call it good enough as both the blade and guard are Damascus. There's still a lot more detailing and finish work to be done on the guard but this is where I'm at right now.
CCCDDDCA-E83A-466F-A34B-8412F69A9307_zpsjxhqeudt.jpg

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I also decided I need to straighten out the plunges so that they are parallel with the guard, right now they look hokey.
 
Try rounding off the inside corners on the top and bottom of your guard slot. Not the sides though. That should help with the guard fit.
 
Maybe rounding it off is the wrong term. It's more like bevelling those inside edges.

I always struggle with that last little gap as well.
 
Have you checked the face of the guard against a flat granite surface block etc.? Maybe it warped just a tiny bit during the heat treat. I know you sanded it all, including the face after heat treat and before the etch, but I figured it might be worth bringing up just incase you didn't check it.

Very nice to see how much attention to detail you're paying btw. :thumbup:

~Paul
My YT Channel Lsubslimed
 
coldsteelburns said:
Have you checked the face of the guard against a flat granite surface block etc.? Maybe it warped just a tiny bit during the heat treat. I know you sanded it all, including the face after heat treat and before the etch, but I figured it might be worth bringing up just incase you didn't check it.

Very nice to see how much attention to detail you're paying btw. :thumbup:
~Paul
My YT Channel Lsubslimed
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Yeah I did and even did the final sanding on the granite. I'm going to try and bevel the top and bottom of the guard slot a little more. What grit should I take the shoulders of the knife to? If I'm going to put the file guide on again I want to make sure I do it right.
 
Hey Kevin...
I spent a few minutes digging through my Fickr feed and found this photo. It's not exactly like your application -- being a plunge-less blade -- but I think that the idea is transferable.

So this has been helpful for me when fitting guards. Using a round file (smaller than the width of your ricasso), remove some of the guard material in the area below the shoulder(s) of the ricasso. For a clean fit, your ricasso needs to sit flush at the shoulder edges. Removing material in the middle allows the guard to seat more easily around the edges when driven into place.

13335099414_8a72c772a5_z.jpg



I hope this is helpful.

Erin
 
Erin Burke said:
Hey Kevin...
I spent a few minutes digging through my Fickr feed and found this photo. It's not exactly like your application -- being a plunge-less blade -- but I think that the idea is transferable.

So this has been helpful for me when fitting guards. Using a round file (smaller than the width of your ricasso), remove some of the guard material in the area below the shoulder(s) of the ricasso. For a clean fit, your ricasso needs to sit flush at the shoulder edges. Removing material in the middle allows the guard to seat more easily around the edges when driven into place.

13335099414_8a72c772a5_z.jpg



I hope this is helpful.

Erin
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Extremely helpful! it makes so much sense. Thanks Erin
 
Kevin Powers said:
Extremely helpful! it makes so much sense. Thanks Erin
Click to expand...

You may already be doing this... but another thing that helps me to find the sticking points is to drive the guard firmly in place with a hammer and some home-fabricated guard-setting tools. You'll have to use some effort and ingenuity to get the guard back off... but once you get it, you can usually see where the shoulders are impacting the guard, and remove additional guard material accordingly. Hope that makes sense.

Erin
 
Erin Burke said:
You'll have to use some effort and ingenuity to get the guard back off...
Click to expand...

Here is a VERY simple way shown for hammering your guard both ON and OFF as well. In this video, to removing the guard he is using a round piece of wood with a split part way throught it in order for the blade to slide into, that way the end of the wood is making contact with the left and right side of the guard face, providing even pressure when hammering on it... it's pretty self explanatory :) , Nick Wheeler has shared some great info on the tools and jigs he uses for doing this as well, but the process in this video below just seems a bit simpler, as opposed to building a dedicated fixture. Check it out! :thumbup:

It shows the process starting at about 1:15 into the vid.

[video=youtube;mHsQNt-Hh5k]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHsQNt-Hh5k[/video]

~Paul
My YT Channel Lsubslimed
 
I've been using a piece of conduit that I squished one end of and tapping it on with a 4 pound maul. Then to remove it I sent the guard down knife point down on a piece of leather on top of my vise jaws. A few taps on the tang it comes off.
 
Well I finally got around to deciding to use a block of koa that I had sitting around with a decent amount of curl. Tonight I started to shape the handle and decided to give the guard a diet. There's still a ton of shaping left to do. I'm going to be happy when this thing is done. Talk about a humbling experience.
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I whittled away on the handle some more getting it down thinner and more ergonomic. I still have to shape the guard to handle transition. I then drilled a 1/8" hole through the block and tang and it had a serious cant. I took time measurements to figure out how bad it was, only 8 thou. Lol I don't know how in the heck it got so bad as I drilled it in my mill with the blade in my file guide set in the mill vise. Anyways so I looked to see if I had any corbys that would work, nope, so I dug around deeper in my pin box and found an old mosaic pin that I made out of stainless a long time ago. Decided that would fit the bill. I opened up the pin hole carefully and was able to get the pin drilled straight. Mistake erased. Then I tapped the pin into place and it decided to take some wood out with it. It was deep. I figured it was too deep and would require that I grind the handle too thin to get it out. Well I chased after it to see if it would be ok and I actually like it. I swear most of my time making knives is spent fixing mistakes.
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Nice looking knife so far, are you going to put a spacer in between the guard and the handle? That might be a nice way to clean up the transition from handle to guard... Looking good though, I want to try a knife with a guard and single pin handle like this some time soon!
 
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