Thought you guys might...

Keith Montgomery

Keith Montgomery

Joined
May 9, 2000
Messages
29,205
...like to see the progress that is being made in the making of a frontier style bowie that I am having made by Gib Guignard and Chuck Burrows. It was inspired by Cactus Rose 2, but will have a wrought iron guard instead of a bronze one. There will also be no filework to the spine of the blade and the clip will be sharpened.

I will post more pictures as I get them.

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Thanks for sharing Kieth. It is the projects that light our fire over here at Shop Talk. Thats a sweet bowie you have going.
 
Looks like it is built for the frontier. That means good to excellent. :)
 
lit my fire for sure,,,,,looks great,,,sure wish I was making kniives like that,,someday.....


JM
 
Originally posted by HammerFall
one question? how do you get the change in the look of the blade from picture one to picture two (set with the guard on)
Click to expand...

Could you please be more specific about what differences you are referring to? Thanks.
 
Glad you all enoy the "process"
I'll be updating this demo with Keith as I go along (will also include the sheath from start to finish), but it will be a couple of weeks before I get much more done on this one - got lots of irons in the fire right now - or to be more correct lots of leather in the horse? :D Just got tired of sewing and had to take a break and eat some steel dust, so I shaped the guard and did the file work.

Hammerfall if I'm reading you correctly the difference your talking about is due to the etching. Picture two shows the blade with Gib's forge finish along the spine and his normal ground finish on the edge and clip.
Picture three shows it after I did the etch - I use Clorox bleach which when it (the chlorine component that is) combines with iron makes - ta dum!!! - Ferric Chloride. I either soak the whole thing in undiluted bleach and let it set for 10-15 minutes. Second method is to wrap it in a towel soaked in bleach (make sure it touches the blade all over) and then stick it in a plastic bag for 10-15 minutes. Chlorine bleach is a more aggressive etch than the diluted Ferric that most maker's use so you have to keep an eye on it. You may have to redo it but it's better to do it in short spurts. When it comes out of the etchant it will have a hoar frost of rust and be dark grey/brown. Wash thoroughly in hot soapy water (a baking soda bath if you want)and dry good. Rub down with steel wool and or a fine Scotchbrite pad - brighten it up as much as you want in other words. The finish is very tough, but if you sand it down too far - wipe the blade down with some bleach and let it work for about five minutes - wash and dry good and it will have regained a bunch of color.
Please - experiment on some scraps I sure don't want any body cussing me out cause they ruined a blade...:rolleyes: :mad: :rolleyes:
 
Clorox bleach which when it (the chlorine component that is) combines with iron makes - ta dum!!! - Ferric Chloride:D

:cool:
chuck when I get some time here I'm going to add that and some of the rest. to the
Knife making site OK?:)
 
Dan-
No problems on my end - in fact any time I post such stuff feel free to use it on your info site.

When I was doing the research on the internet I found refernces to several chemical companies that make ferric ny just that method - they soak scrap in pure chlorine. Hmmm there is an idea - saok steel wool in some bleach for a bit and se what happens.....
 
i was referring to the way the blade looks like it has a smooth finish and in the next picture, (after the etch?) it seems to look almost pitted, ya know? some surface texture.
 
Hammerfall - it is pitting caused by the etchant - I just leave it in long enough to cause a bit of pitting as often occurs with an old well used blade. A lot of hunters for example leave blood on their knife and the salt in it will pit a knife up pretty good.
 
You're welcome - not to steel Keith's thunder - maybe he forgot about this thread he posted it elsewhere so - here's how it looks after I got the grip aged and hafted.

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The buttcap is a silver Mexican coin concho. Next comes the rawhide wrap and the tacks.
 
Thanks Dan - I KNOW the quality of your knives first hand so that's high praise in deed.

For what it's worth these are super fun knives and sheaths to make, but they are not as easy as one might think. In some ways they are harder than polished "new" look knives. You have to constantly keep in mind what tools a frontier smith would have available even though we use a certain amount of modern power equipment. I know some folks have thought and still think of this style as crude, but it's not - it's just not taken to that nth degree of refinement that wasn't the way of the frontiersman. Add to that the aging, which as you know Dan isn't easy to get "right", and you wind up with a quite complicated series of "techniques". And every piece has it's own quirks so....

And we won't even mention the sheath :rolleyes:
 
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