Turkish damascus bowie, extensive WIP

[mgblades]

Great WIP dude! ;-)

 

[Mike Quesenberry]

Lovin the WIP. Those are some crazy tight twists.:thumbup:

 

[A C Richards]

Very Very Nice. Looking forward to the rest of the WIP.

 

[dericdesmond]

subscribed :thumbup:

 

[Zuluninja]

Manuel, I'm from Puerto Rico, and Don Segundo Sombra is (or was, not sure right now) part of the high school reading curriculum; curious fact, it has a quite vivid narration of a gaucho knife fight! Besides being a knifenut, I'm also a booknut, and latin american writers have been a part of my life for as long as I've been able to read. Quiroga's stuff is powerful, sometimes dark, and very wilderness oriented, so these 2 writers wouldn't be out of place in a knife forum. Glad to know you are related to such a big master of literature!

 

[BrianThie]

Manuel

I am very much enjoying this WIP -- thank you. I also enjoy seeing your tools. Your twisting Jig is very cool.

Brian

 

[Manuel Quiroga G.]

Thank you all, Im glad you are enjoin the thread, I learned a lot from this forums so if I can give something back Im glad.

Zuluninja it's true what you say! LOL
I love Don Segundo Sombra too, and not just because I'm related to the author. I suppose you read Borges too? He is also one of my favorites, lots of knives there too!


Ok, so we continue with today's pictures:

Removing the welds

Ok, once I had every thing welded and near to final shape I decided to grind all of the excess meat with an angle grinder, down to clean steel, I think I took 2 mm per side.

Once I saw every thing had welded correctly I started with the shaping

The piece of mild steel didn't make it to the end... but that was no problem at this point. This is what I meant before, if had use equal length bars I would throw away good damascus, this way only the bad ends are discarded.
I cut that with a grinder, in that line

One cut in each side, I don't want any distortions on the pattern

Pretty close

I did a first rough flattening in the grinder

Mark a center line, I made a taper towards the point before I when to the surface grinder, so I need a line to keep every thing even in both sides.

Ok, the blade welded perfectly.

That is it for today.

Thanks again for looking.

 

[dericdesmond]

One of the coolest threads ever.

 

[Wulf]

Really enjoying this, Manuel. You make some wonderful damascus and I'm looking forward to seeing how this one turns out.

 

[Manuel Quiroga G.]

Thank you for your comments.

We continue:

This was the first look of the pattern at this point

Now the real center line

Just a carbide bit in a piece of mild steel

The first grinding, aprox 45º degrees

And then the flats

One side ready

Filing the plunge line

And regrinding, notice the compact grain band, I love them.

320 grit, ready for hardening

But before that, a little etching to see whats going on in the pattern

And edge hardening

To be continued...

 

[tinkerer]

Question?

What would it look like right now if you JUST polished it out? No etching.

I've always wanted to see that and how obvious the grain would be.

Larry
Tinkerer

 

[Steinerj]

ariel salaveria mirror polishes his blades before etching. Cant see a thing

 

[xaman]

Awesome thread! The pattern looks killer

 

[Manuel Quiroga G.]

Larry,
I can try to take a picture after finishing with the polishing and before etching, but I doubt that with my little camera I will achieve something.
In person you can see some of the pattern, playing with the lights.

Thank you for looking

 

[bobbywett]

Thanks so much for this incredibly in-depth tutorial Manuel. It is greatly appreciated.

 

[Joss]

Awesome thread, thank you. Have you made daggers that way?

 

[Manuel Quiroga G.]

Thank you guys
Joss, I've never done a dagger yet, but I want to try one some time soon.

 

[jklein7401]

Manuel, fantastic WIP. Thanks for taking all the extra time to post this up. Another superb looking knife, really looking forward to the end result. Your Damascus is just beautiful and so well controlled.

Jon

 

[Todd Miller]

I am in awe. Thanks so much for sharing this-Todd

 

[claudio-cas]

Another great work Manuel! See you soon in the expositions of Buenos Aires, you'll set this knife in exhibition?