Ring Guard Bowie Progression

[peterinct]

COOL. I'm anxious to see it come together Kyle.

Thanks again for posting it.

Peter

 

[Kevin Jones]

Looking Good Kyle. :thumbup:

 

[Michael J. Smith]

Nice WIP
Knife should look killer when done.

 

[Kyle Royer]

Hi everyone.

Thanks for the complements fellas.

Sorry for not posting for three days, I'm working my way through the slow part of this knife and wanted to have plenty of pictures to show you.

I have drilled the line up pin holes and have profiled the Ivory to the frame.

Here I've Marked out the pieces of damascus for the rear bolsters.

Now I've cut out the rear bolsters and an going to super glue one onto the frame and and drill the line up pin holes, then I'll take it off and do the same to the other bolster.

As you can see in this picture the handle scales are about how thick I want them AFTER I have them on the frame, so next I'll thin them down a bit.

The thinned down handle scales are just about right.

Now I've super glued the liner to the clam shell guard so I can drill line up pin holes in it.

Here I have put the handle, spacers and guard together with the line up pins to see how it fits and it fits great!

I have shaped the spacer and guard a little in this picture.

 

[Kyle Royer]

Now that I have the handle shaped a little we can see how this looks with the ring guard. (It is a lot of fun to spin. Caleb and I will make a Video of myself spinning the knife when it's finished.)

Here I've made a precise half pattern out of card stock paper and have used it to shape both sides of the frame to be exactly the same and then I put the handle scales on and profiled them to the frame.

In this picture I've cut and ground out as much material in the frame as I care to take out to reduce handle weight.

I drilled holes in the back side of the bolsters going about half way through to reduce as much weight as possible.

Here I've drilled holes about 1/4 the way through the Ivory to reduce weight and the holes that will be over the frame pieces will hold epoxy and help hold the handle together. I have also drilled weight reduction holes in the liners.

Now I've shaped the ivory on the front to take out the dips in it and make as close to the shape of the other scale as possible. You can see I've lost a little color but there is simply no way around that unless you left the scale as is with little irregularities. Shaping the scale brought out some very cool looking blue veins.

Now I've shaped this scale. I did not lose quite as much color on this side because the scale was already quite flat.

To give my mind a little break I decided to make the take down tool. (working with so many things I haven't done before makes me think twice as hard and I like to take my time and try not to make a mistake at this point or I'll have a long ways to backtrack. I thought this would be a good time to make a simple damascus take down tool.) It will have clam shell themed file work on the end to mach the rest of the knife when I'm done. In this picture I have a 3/4" twisted Ws bar that I've taken the liberty of grinding off the corners on, which will make it easier to put in the lathe.

I've shaped out the piece with the lathe as best of my abilities (If I were a good machinist I would have shaped the piece very close to the final shape with the lathe cutter but as you can tell I'm no machinist. I'll shape it the rest of the way with files, which work great, they just take longer.)

I have shaped and sanded the piece to 600 grit and will cut the ends off with my band-saw.

That's all I have now. I will be hardening the take down tool next. Thanks for looking and God bless!

 

[Lorien]

your weight savings measures are going to pay BIG dividends with this knife:thumbup:

 

[Kyle Royer]

your weight savings measures are going to pay BIG dividends with this knife:thumbup:

That's what I'm hoping for. Even with all the weight I got rid of, it will still balance at the spacer or guard.

 

[Kevin Jones]

That ivory will be absolutely gorgeous after a good buff-up.
Nice touch in matching the take-down tool to the finial and clamshell.

Really nice job Kyle. :thumbup:

 

[Jon Brand]

That ivory is something else. Nice looking work so far.

 

[peterinct]

That ivory will be absolutely gorgeous after a good buff-up.
Nice touch in matching the take-down tool to the finial and clamshell.

Really nice job Kyle. :thumbup:

That ivory is something else. Nice looking work so far.

I was also thinking that is some spectacular looking mammoth ivory.

The knife is really beginning to look like another outstanding piece.

Thanks again Kyle.

Peter

 

[Marcel54]

Kyle, your work so far looks top notch. Really nice looking set of ivory scales as well.

Marcel

 

[Kyle Royer]

Hi everyone!

Yes I'm still working on this knife, I just underestimated the complexity of the project (like I have a tendency to do from time to time) before I started so it's taking more time than planed and coming out great.

Here I have forged the regular ring guard to to shape. Soon after doing this I realized that I cut too much off and made the guard to short so I scraped that one and started over on the guard with an extra piece of damascus I had and learned a good lesson.

I forged the ring guard to shape here and next to it is the guard that I made too short. I just wanted it a little shorter than the ring guard and ended up making it a lot shorter.

I've heat treated the end of the take down tool so it won't bend during use.

Now I've tempered the take down tool to make it tougher and less brittle so it won't break during use.

These are the lay-out cuts for the clam shell theme on the end of the take down tool.

Here I have rounded out the first cuts to make it look more like a clam shell.

After a lot of sanding and etching of the damascus here is the end product on the take down tool.

Here is a side shot of the take down tool.

Here I've ground on the spacer a little with a 220 grit belt to make it a little smaller than the handle. I did this so I could bull nose the edge of the handle.

Now I've cut a small grove around the damascus spacer with a file. I put layout blue in the groove so you could see it.

 

[Kyle Royer]

Here is the new clam shell guard and as you can see I have left plenty of material on the ends to work with.

In this picture I've done some finish grinding on the rear bolsters sides and corners.

I have roughed out the clam shell guard and made it ready for forging the curves in.

I have forged in the curves on the clam shell in this picture.

Some more rough shaping.

And a quick look to see how it sits on the knife and mark out how the piece will be shaped.

More shaping.

Now I've taken a stone on the Dremel tool and have shaped out the cup on the underside of the clam shell.

 

[Kyle Royer]

Here I've taken a fine stone on the dremel and smoothed up the inside of the cup.

Now I have taken a file and rounded off all of the corners on the guard. I have also sanded the inside cups with 600 grit paper.

A quick look to see how it looks on the handle.

Last for tonight is a picture of how the overall knife is looking. I am VERY pleased on how it's coming out so far.

Thanks for looking.

 

[Patrick M.]

Kyle, maybe I miss something, but... why are you making a classic guard ? Did you give up with the ring guard ?

 

[TekSec]

Very cool! Love the step by step!

 

[Burchtree]

Gorgeous knife!!

 

[EdgarFigaro]

Patrick I think the plan he's aiming for is interchangeable guards.

Beau Erwin

 

[Marcel54]

Kyle, maybe I miss something, but... why are you making a classic guard ? Did you give up with the ring guard?

Patrick, earlier in the thread Kyle informed us that he is going to make a take down construction with two interchangeable guards. Hence the two different guards

Marcel

 

[Patrick M.]

Thank you. I actually read about take down construction but didn't notice anything about two guards.