Some pics of blade work...

[Salem Straub]

Some pics of my latest project- in progress for a fellow forumite. As a WIP post, it may be lacking as I am not necessarily posting a full step by step of a knife; also because I digress occasionally as the mood strikes. Nevertheless, here for your entertainment, (or vilification) is a little photo documentation from my workbench.

I made a billet of cable first. Here is half of it, after being hot cut.

I then (here is where the continuity may get frustrating) forged it flat, forged a profile, grabbed a pattern, clamped it on the forging and scribed the profile, then profile ground it. I then ground scale off with a dull belt, roughed the edge in with 45's, and hollow ground the tang prior to flat grinding the taper in. Here is me flat grinding the tang.

After these steps, here is the rough ground blade.

 

[Salem Straub]

Oh by the way, I gave it a 12" hollow grind on this grinder that I built the other day. Here is a picture of my new grinder that I named "Hernia" after I picked it up to move it. Love those blaze belts...

With the blade rough ground, I stamped my trademark freehand with letter stamps- man, I need to get a single stamp made.

To take the stamp edges down, and eliminate cracks, I ground the blade to 220.
I then began to heat my quench oil...

Then I heated the blade...

and quenched it.

 

[Salem Straub]

Here is the result. No significant warpage. (Whew.) Tempered 2x for 2 hours at 300 degrees. (I temper this cable pretty low.)

I ground the scale off, marked and centerpunched for holes, and drilled for the bolster pins.

I ground and tuned the blade up to 400 grit. Here is another shot of my hollow grinder with a 220 grit J-flex on it just because I love it so. And yes, that is a piece of 2x6.

Then I used a piece of glass, spray glue, and sandpaper wet through 400 grit to lap the bolster area dead flat.

 

[Salem Straub]

I did several of these steps between heats on a smithing project, building a set of towel racks for a local fella... (Here's the digression part.)

I marked out and cut some nickel silver for the bolsters...

Shined them flat to 220 on the platen...

Clamped the first one to the tang, marked the holes with the press, then drilled them.

 

[Salem Straub]

Soon it will be time to hand rub the blade, and I did not have a backing block made for 12" hollow grinds. So I took some of the same white plexi I made the pattern out of, cut it about 1"x6" or so, heated it slowly with the torch, and began to bend it into a curve.

Once I had the curve about right (checking it against my 12" wheel) I roughed the outer surface with 120 grit, cut out some leather, (rubber will do as well) and glued it onto the plexi with all purpose cement. I then clamped it, still pretty warm, to the inside of my contact wheel to set. (The inside, so the radius is a little smaller than the grind.)

Since I am making this blade with cable pins, I began to prep the pins. First, I took some shorter pieces of unravelled cable strands, and cold-hammered them pretty straight over a slight depression on the anvil face.

Then, I soaked them in kerosene overnight, scrubbed them, and taped off sections about 2" long.

I cut the pins off long, about 2", because they fall apart if cut much shorter. I like to put them in a flaring swage to clamp them for cutting, as the strand stays nice and round this way. With them held in the vise, I cut with an angle grinder. (Sorry about the PBR in these shots, I only saw it there in retrospect.)

I then took time off to feed my mare. Say hi, Kairi-bai!

Now I am going to go finish this blade and sheath, I will post more but it will take me several days as I don't get to town often. Hope you have enjoyed thus far.

 

[jll346]

Thanks for sharing. I look forward to the finished results.

 

[Shawn fu]

Thanks for taking the time to share Salem-I cant wait to see more:thumbup:
Shawn

 

[Salem Straub]

Here is a shot of the pins cut to 2," taped on both ends.

Back to bolster work. After marking and drilling the location holes on the first bolster using the tang, I clamped the two bolster pieces together parallel and drilled the other bolster. I lapped the insides of the bolsters nice and flat by hand with 320 grit on glass, then cut try-pins out of SS tig wire, and fit the bolsters together.

With the bolsters temporarily pinned together, I ground then polished the front and back faces smooth and parallel.

 

[Salem Straub]

I thought it would be a nice touch to dovetail the bolsters on this one, so I set the platen on my old Square Wheel to about 25 degrees, and ground the angle first on the back of the bolsters,

Then I tapped the platen just one degree or so back (because of the tapered tang) and ground the same angle on the front of my micarta slabs. This was all done with 220 grit.

With this accomplished, I try fit the bolsters onto the blade,

then put the 8" wheel on and roughed out a hollow into the bolster surfaces, pushing the try-pins back and forth as needed.

 

[Salem Straub]

With the bolsters done for now, I took them off and went into etching the blade. I masked the blade off right at the bolsters, then cleaned then sprayed the bolster area with clear laquer. I took the tape off the blade; I did this so that I would have a clean, bright bolster area to epoxy to with a sharp line where the etch begins at the bolster face.

After etching in 1/4 ratio Ferric chloride/water several times for a minute each, scrubbing and lightly sanding with 1500 grit in between, I was satisfied with the pattern and neutralized the blade.

I cleaned the laquer off the bolster area of the blade with acetone, coated same area as well as the inside bolster surfaces with epoxy, fit the bolsters on with nickel silver pins, peened them, clamped it, peened again, clamped again, and let it set an hour.

I clamped the scales to the tang, one at a time, drilling holes through for pins, using a 1/16" shim under the tang end on the press table to compensate for the tang taper. I then roughed up the scale insides with 220, then epoxied them on, setting the pins in with epoxy as well. Clamped the tar out of it.

Here is another pic of the pin ends, you can see the slight taper I put in the ends so they slid smooth through the assembly.

 

[Salem Straub]

At this point, I got in an all-fired rush or something, and decided to finish the knife before taking any more pics. (Sorry...) Basically, I cut the pins down to the scales with an angle grinder, hollowed the contours of the grip with an 8" contact wheel, roughed out and polished the finger guard area with the 1" wheel, slack belted to 400 grit, hand sanded to 600 grit, buffed with green, then white on a loose buff, made the sheath from veg tanned horse leather, waxed and oiled everything up, then took these pics of the finished blade. Mailed it off today.

Whew. Hope you all enjoyed this, please give me your opinions...

 

[Frank Niro]

Great. Frank

 

[bondy]

Great knife Salem:thumbup:, one question what is the benefit of the tube inside your fire bricks.

 

[Salem Straub]

That tube in my forge is I kind of rudimentary heat treating baffle, I run the forge really low and heat that tube up as slow and even as possible, keeps the raw burner flame from contacting the blade, heats the blade more evenly, reduces warpage in the quench, etc.
Thanks Frank, Bondy.

 

[amcardon]

Beautiful knife; really like the cable damascus and the cable pins are a nice touch. I really love the look of a tapered tang, really shows a great level of skill!

Thanks for posting this WIP, it's been fun to watch progress!