The 72 Hour Bowie (Forging with Farr, Part 2)

[RogerP]

For those that don't like long, meandering in-progress threads with a few detours along the way, flee while you can.

If you're still with me, but use dial-up, save your sanity and go here:

http://www.fototime.com/inv/72A2EA3BA590F9E

At the Northeast hammer-in in Vermont last August (hosted by our very own Wulf), one of the many great people I met was a new maker, certified knife nut and fellow forumite Matthew Gregory. Matt had expressed a desire to tag along the next time I visited Dan's shop, so we worked towards setting something up.

That something took place this past weekend.

We met up at Dan's idyllic cabin just outside Dansville, NY on Thursday evening.

Some trophies from one of Dan's Africa hunts - you simply cannot believe the size of that Eland.

Thursday evening we relaxed - something that wouldn't happen again for the rest of the weekend - and had a little show-and-tell. Matt brought this VERY slick little utility knife that he had made:

Early Friday morning we decide to warm up by forging out some smaller pieces.

Dan starts off with some basic forging instruction and demonstration.

Get it hot...

And hit it hard:

Matt has a go - turns out he's a natural, even if he is a lefty:

 

[RogerP]

I'm not a natural, so Dan keeps a close eye to make sure I neither put the hammer through my foot - or worse - hit the ricasso!

I forged out this cool little Southwest personal carry / weapon of mass destruction. Regrettably, having forged it closely to shape, but alltogether too thin, it is now a cool little Southwest letter opener:

Before lunch, we took a hike around the many acres of wooded trails that surround the forge. Since trail clearing is one of the traditional uses of a large knife, I decided to take put the product of my last trip to Dan's forge to the test and have a go at some of the large man-eating vines that threatened us (or at least the trees) along the way (I warned you about detours - this is one):

I cut something - and it wasn't my leg - Yay for me! (if you set a low threshold for success you will smile more often ).

Matt has a go:

Wow - knives can work left-handed - who knew?

These vines are thick, wet and dense - they should be made part of the cutting competition tests:

 

[RogerP]

Dan gets inon the act, chopping quite efficiently with a large hunter:

Close-up of the knives:

Oh yes - I did mention something about a bowie, didn't I?

Well it was decided that in addition to pounding out our own pieces, we would try to make one knife as a collaborative effort. I got to pick the design. What I really wanted to make was something along the lines of a Fisk Rojo - one of the best large camp knives ever designed, IMHO. Dan thought I was being ambitious, Matt thought I was nuts, but that's what I wanted to make.

I didn't want to try to do an exact copy, but rather an homage,if you will, to one of my favorite Fisk knives - heck, one of my favorite knives, period. I planned a similar blade profile, but a handle design that borrowed elemnts from Fisk, Farr and my own handle designs on past knives (all 2 o fthem ).

An outline of the blade shape and a big honkin' piece of steel were our starting points:

Matt makes a start:

This is a looong blade - good thing this forge has a back door:

It really helps to be able to tag-team the hammer. Here I am working back toward the ricasso,pulling down the steel to form the widest part of the blade:

Matt takes a bow out of the spine by whacking the edge with a 2 by 4:

A KLO (knife-like object) slowly emerges:

More to come.

Roger

 

[Jon Brand]

That looks like fun. And that little cabin shop looks beautiful in the woods.

 

[lwrhea]

Excellent! I love your narratives Roger. The pics are great too. I want to see the results of this project!
Lin

 

[Doug C]

Wonderful story,great pics and customs being used. :thumbup:
I can hardly wait to see it completed,have an idea what steel is being used but best to ask, to be sure.
Thanks for this thread,Roger.

Doug

 

[thepaintedbird]

Roger, awesome thread! When are we going to start seeing knives by Roger P in the makers forum?

 

[Charles Vestal]

Great thread Roger.

Looks like a fun and productive weekend.

Looking forward to the follow-up.

Charles

 

[Karl B. Andersen]

Don't leave us hangin' like this!

 

[brightred]

cool! thanks a lot! :thumbup:

hans

 

[John White]

Roger,
Thanks for reminding us all of the main reason forged blades are "best", forging is FUN!

By the way, your's is the definition of "forged to shape". Good job.

Hi Dan, what a wonderful shop.

John

 

[RogerP]

At this point we left the beautiful woodlands of the forge for the tree-lined neighborhood in Rochester that Dan calls home - and the shop that contains a truly enviable assembly of knifemaking equipment.

Next step was surface grinding the ricasso to give us a nice solid flat foundation from which to build our house (to borrow a turn of phrase from my buddy Nick )

Apart from cleaning off some scale, this would be the end of my grinding - as I SUCK at it - and we were really aiming to get this big baby done by Sunday night. Putting a clean flat grind on a blade of this dimensions was no easy task, but Matt was up to the challenge.

Resembling a knife a little bit more:

Skipping forward a couple steps, 'cause this is taking forever already - here we are heating the beast - which we had dubbed "Mojo" at this point - getting ready for the quench. Got to get a nice even bright orange glow...

Then hold your breath:

Get the blade into the sunlight and give it a real close look for an slight warpage - the window of opportunity to correct same is very small. It did warp slightly, but we got 'er straight right quick.

After the blade cooled, we got it reeeeaaall cool by giving it a liquid nitro cryo nap.

That's one frosty Mojo my friends:

Roger

PS - Doug - steel is 1084. Our smaller blades were of some very new and exciting stuff - about which you will hear more at a later date.

John - you are so right - this whole deal was a lot of work AND a tremendous amount of fun at the same time. When you can combine those two, life is good.

 

[peterinct]

That is VERY cool. Great thread and is was mentioned a very well equipped shop to have the use of (as well as Dan's expertise).

I have been interested to go to a hammer-in and this thread makes me want to go to one even more.

Thanks,
Peter

 

[ddd]

Good and clear photography! More such coverage should be posted for
everyone to enjoy!

All the best.
David Darom (ddd)

 

[Wulf]

What a great weekend that must've been. Three of my favorite guys hanging out making knives together!

The Mojo might be a little ambitious but I really like that blade shape. Can't wait to see it completed.

 

[RMLamey]

This thread has reminded me that knife making is supposed to be fun.... thanks Roger, i needed the reminder.

 

[Keith Montgomery]

Cool thread.

Roger, you should go back and edit post three. The second and third last photos don't match up to the descriptions above them.

 

[Matthew Gregory]

Roger, I can't believe you got home and started this already! I thought for sure you'd work on this thread later in the week - your stamina is impressive, to say the least. Considering the pace Dan kept us at (and the need for diligence to get as far as we did on the Mojo), I'm stunned we're both not comatose! I don't think I'll ever stop hearing the incessant beating of Dan's cadence drum, but at least he can't hit me with that hickory rod anymore, or threaten me with that infernal hound he keeps starved!

Great weekend. I learned more in three days than I could possibly have achieved in 5 years.

Good times, good people, bad music, sleep and nutrient deprivation, big blades. Is there really anything better in life?

matt


PS- Sorry I couldn't get my wedding band off all weekend, guys. It really cut down on the groupies and chicks that normally hang out in Dan's workshop, I know...

 

[RogerP]

Overall design was left up to me and now it was time to turn to the handle. It really helps to trace out the near-completed blade and tang and sketch the handle around that.

This is what I came up with. Dan didn't laugh and Matt didn't give me that "Are you nuts?" look, so we were good to go. I wanted some handle drop, but nothing extreme - I was willing to trade some power for speed.

Since I was already there and all, I decided to re-profile the handle of my hunter (shown above) - but I'm trying to keep the detours to a minimum so we'll leave that for another time also.

This shot of drawing out the spine gives a pretty good look at the distal taper. It was a primary design goal that this BIG knife be fast and well-balanced - the kind of piece where you pick it up and your eyes tell you that you are holding way more knife than your hands feel. That taper was forged in, with the symmetry perfectly maintained by Matt throughout the grinding.

WARNING - the following contains explicit images of wood porn - if you are not at least 18 years of age, proceed no further.

....


Okay gents - check out the figure on this block of black walnut gun stock:

Getting closer....

A solid hunk of 416 stainless, surface ground on both sides:

Dan cutting into that gorgeous hunk of walnut.

I have a real love / hate relationship with hand-rubbed satin finishes. The first stages (in our case 220 then 320 grit) can be sooooo frustrating - rub, rub , rub, rub, and you feel that you are getting nowhere. Those blasted little scratches in the plunge cuts will never come out. I want my mommy!

But when you finally get it clean with everything running north /south and move on to the higher grits (in our case, 400 then 600) it is just sooooo rewarding to see that fine, even sheen emerge.

But any way you slice it is a lot of work. "Why couldn't you ^%$ing well decide to do a &^%ing "homage" to a ^%$ing Sendero you &^%$#%??!!"

Friends again:

Just kidding, of course - Matt complained of nothing all weekend. Except the music and the torturous "heartbreak hill" bike ride that Dan took him on to burn some energy from the aforementioned infernal hound.

Roger

PS - Thanks Keith - edited to match.

 

[RAN]

I Need a Beer after a thread like that
Awesome pics and fun
Don't know about The Sabres Love from Dan though, I bleed Habs

Look forward to meeting you guys