The Traveler WIP

Haha Paul thanks for you comment I'll try to keep things rolling and not keep you waiting :D The one advantage of this project is that since this is a skill building project and does not yet have a buyer I am able to make a few design changes along the way. In this case I have been struggling with the initial design with it being so "American" not that that is a bad thing, but since this is supposed to be a fusion of the two styles I had been wracking my brain as to how to bring all of the elements more together. So you will notice I decided to bring the heel into a sharper curve reducing the blade length by about 3/16 of an inch. Some might dislike the change from the initial design but I feel that ultimately it will work in favor of the piece coming together. But enough of that and on to today's progress.

Okay so here is today's progress, nothing too exciting just polishing... endless polishing...

Here I have polished the ricasso and clip to a rough 1,000 grit



Then up to 1500



And then the spine bevels brought up to 1500



And then just at the very end of the day I started sanding the primary flat of the blade. Only six more faces to go!!.....Why do my fingers hurt so badly??? :P
 
Are you back to regular metal? Not seeing metal sandwich layering. What am I missing here?
You make it look easy but I got a feeling you could do this blindfolded.

Gary
 
Gary that's kind of you to say and far from the truth lol but it is still the highly layered steel and you won't see the layers until later on in the polishing process but after the initial blade cracked and I folded the parts back into a new blade it brought the total layer count up to between 6,000 and 8,000 layers so pretty darn fine. When holding it at just the right angle you can make out the layers in the current state but it will become much more apparent later on.
 
What a great thread. Robert I'm on pins and needles waiting for the etching to bring out the fine points in the layers. A great looking blade in the making.
 
Awesome thread, thanks for taking the time to photograph everything and post it all online.:thumbup:
 
Thanks for the comments guys :) Always happy to share.

So unfortunately I only have one photo today, I am hoping to have all the polishing and etching done by Monday, but as of today one entire side and the spine are at 1500 grit:

 
Today's progress:

The blade is all polished up and hidden away from prying eyes...muhaha! But in all seriousness I forgot to take a photo of the nearly finished blade before putting the wrappings on and didn't want to go to the trouble of unwrapping it. :)



And finally after 16 hours of polishing I cdan finally get back to work on the handle. I start by truing up the flat surface of the carbon fiber side of the handle.



See the perpendicular scratches in the lower left corner? All of those need to come out, which did not take as long as I suspected it would working with such a tough material.



Once everything is all flat I then super glue the guard spacer on to the top of the handle to prepare for the pin holes to be drilled:



Then everything is drilled and checking the fit:



Then I brought down the carbon fiber to flush with the spacer so that later on in the clean up I won't have issues with clean up.



And that is all for today, much more to come tomorrow:
 
It's commin along great :thumbup: . Man, that last picture really shows how big a chunk of carbon fiber that is! :eek: I can't wait to see how everything looks when it's all joined into one piece, I can now see how the handle materials come together will help show off the eastern part of this fusion, having a sorta yin yang shape.. very cool! Once again, thanks for taking the time to share your progress. :)

~Paul
My YT Channel Lsubslimed
 
Well unfortunately this project will have to be put on hold for a few days as there was a death in the family and I have to travel for the funeral. But after I am back everything should come together fairly quickly. Thanks again for looking at this thread while the work progresses.

Robert
 
- I realized that I forgot to post a couple of pictures from yesterday, so before I take off here is where I am at currently.

The handle, bronze spacer, and pattern welded spacer are now fit onto the handle leaving only the main guard left to be fitted which will be done upon my return. Yesterday after getting everything fitted I did the first round of etching on the spacer to see how everything will go together.

 
I know this thread has been sitting here for a while, but did you ever end up finishing this knife? I've been seeing all of the Great knives that you and Caleb have been posting (lovin' them btw!) and I can't say that I remember seeing this one yet... unless I missed it?

Anyway, I really hope to see it finished some day! ;)

~Paul
My YT Channel Lsubslimed
... (It's been quite a while since I've posted any new vids)
 
Hey Paul, yeah I wasn't very happy with how the handle was finishing up and had to scrap the $120 worth of handle material. I decided to set the project aside for a while and return to it later this year when I have a bit more time.
 
It was very interesting to watch the process of making the blade. :thumbup:
 
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