The Tail (or Tale) of the Chupacabra. Now with pro photos

Wings? now I know it has been a long winter. Maybe Angel needs to intervene before those flying monkeys from Wizard of Oz show up. Keep it up Mark, this is going to be great.
Gary
 
Did he look like this?
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Your right Mark I don't believe it so send me what ever your smoking it might help with some of my pain. Don't have any thing that strong in MN. LOL;) :p Just kidding . Cant wait to se the finished product.. Your the BEST KT
 
Burl Source said:
Did he look like this?
chupacabra_rework_zps260a2063.jpg
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Yep, like that, a fearsome thing, except mine didn't have a little dude on the end of his little dude. Not that I was looking at his little dude, what I mean to say is, I didn't see a little dude there. Anyway mine had a little more fur, and again, mine didn't have red eyes, this one must be mad, mine wasn't mad, he was happy probably because he had just scored a pint of Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough frozen goat yogurt. I notice this one doesn't have a tail either, probably go it stuck under someone else's garage door.
 
The dies are mounted in the C-frame
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I will add some tabs on the side of the lower die to aid in alignment for long pieces.

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I am in my "scale" phase. To fully explore all the possibilities of textures, size of scales, and styles of knives, also to get economy of scale (so to speak) I'm going to make a few of these scaly knives. This is a drop point hunter, commissioned by a very nice fellow from Italy.

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Next, a scaly dagger. I threw some Spanish notches on there as a nod to Lorien. I like the way they look.

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And a nice big Bowie, might need something to ward off those winged SOBs.
 
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I'm incredibly curious to see those knives develop. Some serious craftsmanship and creativity has already gone into the handle material of each. Thanks for taking the time to post your progress.


Jeremy
 
OK, I made some steel today I started four billets, finished one and pressed the texture in to it.

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Pressing the texture into the damascus, it took three presses to cover the whole billet evenly.

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It looks like a good press, I lost count of my layers and may have folded this billet too many times. It's in the vermiculite overnight to anneal. In the morning I will mill the surface flat on both sides, sand it and check the pattern.

More tomorrow, thanks for checking in.
 
Thanks Alicia, it's always nice to see girls around here.

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I took the billet out of the vermiculite and was pleased with the forging. So far, my test piece looks good.

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I milled the billet flat. I could see the pattern starting to show up in the steel.

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I etched the billet and here's what I got. It's a good pattern, not what I am looking for, for these knives though. It looks more like a rain drop pattern than a scaly pattern. It's not a great loss because I wanted a rain drop die anyway. The problem is, the pattern in the die does not transmit into the flat steel with high resolution. I Had ground a radius on the end mill that I used to make the forming die. I'm sure that sharp corners on the end mill will give me better results, back to the milling machine to make another die. It takes about a day to mill one side of the die and forge the other.

Thanks for watching, more tomorrow.
 
Mark, just a thought but I think you need a bolder scale die and more aggressive to go deeper into the billet. The aggressive shock to the steel will transfer deeper into the billet. A lot more waste this way but the shock will transfer thru the middle of the billet.
I think you are headed the right direction. This deep shock works for me with bold ladders. Also shocks the pattern to the surface.

I hope some quick shop talk is ok with the mods. Gary
 
gthouse said:
Mark, just a thought but I think you need a bolder scale die and more aggressive to go deeper into the billet. The aggressive shock to the steel will transfer deeper into the billet. A lot more waste this way but the shock will transfer thru the middle of the billet.
I think you are headed the right direction. This deep shock works for me with bold ladders. Also shocks the pattern to the surface.

I hope some quick shop talk is ok with the mods. Gary
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Yes, I think you are right, I have made a second one and will try it. I may have to do another one with deeper relief though. Thanks Gary
 
OK, I have some confessions to make;

First, there was no chupacabra, I made the whole thing up (yeah I know, hard to believe huh) I think it came to me while I was under anesthesia during the alien abduction episode. I don't know what those little green fluffy mothers did to me while I was out but now I have two belly buttons :o

Second, sometimes creativity gets in the way with productivity and sometimes production gets in the way of creativity. That's what's happening to me right now. I spent a little too much time on the elephant ivory ban and got a little behind on my custom knife work. My customer that ordered the drop point hunter in this thread is getting very anxious to get his knife. I'm going to have to come up with some damascus for it real soon so I can keep him happy. A scaly pattern in his blade was not part of the deal for him, but I always try to put extra elements in each knife. I am afraid I'm going to have get this knife finished up even if I don't come up with a scaly pattern.

Third, this pattern has been very challenging for me, my second and third attempts were no better than the first. I have one more scheme to try today if it doesn't work I'll need to finish the drop point anyway and get back to the scale pattern later. I may have to go to powder metal to get the results I need. That will be fun.

Results later, thanks for checking in.
 
I liked the pattern in the steel.
My opinion about the creative stuff is that it is necessary to maintain your sanity.
Sounds like you are borderline at the moment.
No matter what you do it is going to be fun to see how this knife turns out.
 
Mark, there will not be much room for error with that pattern. I made me some dies like that 2 years ago and you got to be close with this one.
We don't have them rascals down here. All we got is Werpossums. Slick tails.
 
Mark: Excellent thread and story.........congratulations on owning two belly buttons....after I was abducted I returned with two complete sets of testicles. One would think this is a good thing, but the delivery system cannot support a full load. :eek:
 
TK Steingass said:
Mark: Excellent thread and story.........congratulations on owning two belly buttons....after I was abducted I returned with two complete sets of testicles. One would think this is a good thing, but the delivery system cannot support a full load. :eek:
Click to expand...

Too funny
 
fisk said:
Mark, there will not be much room for error with that pattern. I made me some dies like that 2 years ago and you got to be close with this one.
We don't have them rascals down here. All we got is Werpossums. Slick tails.
Click to expand...

Thanks Jerry, I am finding that to be the case. Talk to you later,. What the heck is a werpossum? Mark
 
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