Turkish damascus bowie, extensive WIP

[mgblades]

Great work!

 

[Manuel Quiroga G.]

Thank you guys.
Claudio, I think I will have it in the Buenos Aires Knife Show, unless I sell it before LOL

This are the last pictures I have:

That night it rained, the ride from town to the farm-shop was a wild ride LOL

First I dressed the wheel, 3 hundredths of a mm per pass works fine for me.

The blade was tempered before that

Here I'm re scribing the center line, that is going to be the real definitive one, cause in hardening blades usually warp in some degree.

And grinding again (notice the magnifying glasses)

And there is where I am now, that is 120 grit.

From now on I will work in real time, showing the every day progress.
I will continue with the pictures tomorrow, today is a holiday

 

[Kislinger]

Wow the car is lada niva. right?? My father had same when I was child. It was undestroyable.
by the way blade looks gorgeous.

 

[Manuel Quiroga G.]

Yes Kislinger, it's a Niva, I bought it a month ago and that day was the real mud test, I'm really happy with it's performance.

 

[Javier Vogt]

As usual from you, a great damascus! And the WIP... :thumbup:

See you in Buenos Aires... and don't sell it before the show!

Javi

 

[Manuel Quiroga G.]

Thank you Javi!

 

[Zuluninja]

Manuel, that's an awesome looking blade! and yeah, I've read Borges...pretty thick, twisted stuff! I remember googling references from one paragraph on a short story for half an hour, I was utterly lost, but the guy pulled me into the story and left me dizzy after done. I need to visit Argentina someday, I truly love it's literature and it's music (Cadillacs, Enanitos, Piojos, Gardel etc.) and would love to go riding with gauchos and dress cattle at evening for a parrillada (would give me a chance to use my knives, lol). Keep up the great work!

 

[ruben_anubis]

Nice job Manuel!!!

I like your WIPs.

 

[Manuel Quiroga G.]

Thank you guys.
Here is what I've been up to today.

After re filing the plunge line I went again to the grinder, to take off those file marks

Spray adhesive, one of the coolest things made by man

The sandpaper is glued to a flat and 90º angle piece of steel, and also clamped in the other end

I like a sharp 90º angle in that place

Much better... (sorry for the lousy picture, trust me, it was much better LOL)

Then I went again to the grinder and take it up to 600 grit, the compact grain bands (in case someone don't know them) are very hard, and won't bend in the edge, so the 90º angle at the plunge line is not rounded at all. That is one of the reason why I love them. The second one is that the last for ever.

Then I worked on the recasso area

Then I filed the shoulders

Polishing the down part of recasso, which I also like to have a 90º sharp angle, so I use the same jig

Ok, then it was time for the mark
I use a silkscreen method (I don't know if that word makes any sense to you, the google translator gave it to me LOL).

There is the little bird (it's a Tero)

Ink

And yet another lousy picture

I masked every thing, made a lagoon of clay, and etch it with nitric acid, 3 minutes

While the ink was drying up, I actually started on the damascus parts for guard and collar

This was the bar I already had

(Notice the sleeping dog, "not caring a bit for the wicked world...")

Twisting

That is it for today, thanks for looking

 

[MT Damascus]

This just keeps getting better, thanks.

 

[Burton Harruff]

Awesome wip! Thanks for taking time to share with us.

 

[Phil Dwyer]

I never thought of silk screening and acid etching. It's good to learn about different way folks get things done. THANKS!

 

[RogerP]

Really enjoying this.

Roger

 

[Manuel Quiroga G.]

Thank you for your comments.

We continue:

First I forged the collar and guard.
I always wondered what would happened if I cut a twisted bar and did this...

Press

The twists got really tight, I never did this before, but guess the pattern will look great

Guard and collar forged to shape and annealed

While the other parts where in heat treatment I started with the hand rubbing of the blade

Convex edge

And hand rubbing again

You might see some confusion with the grit numbers, LOL, what actually happened is that I started with 220 but I wasn't enough, so I went back to 150

That is the final grit for this blade, as I'm gonna be doing a really deep etch and phosphatize I think that more than 500 grit is not necessary.

I do the clip after that, so the edge is really crispy

Finally it was ready for etching

This is not the final etching, that will be after fitting the guard, but you can see what it will look like...

I'm really happy with the pattern.

Again, thank you for looking

 

[MT Damascus]

Great, looking foward to the guard and collar. Cheers, Kris

 

[NickWheeler]

FANTASTIC!!!! Loving your thread and the blade Manuel!!! :thumbup: :thumbup:

And apparently there's some weird geographical phenomena that allows you guys down in South America to twist billets insanely tight without shearing them apart like I do!!!

Awesome work!!!

 

[ARMYOf1]

Wonderful thread! Fabulous looking blade!

 

[Manuel Quiroga G.]

Nick, something like the Coriolis effect?

Glad you like it guys.

 

[BRTATCK]

Good one Nick. It must be because we are in the northern hemisphere. Just excellent thread Manuel. I am really looking forward to seeing the completed knife. Great WIP.
Brion

 

[DcL]

beautiful pattern I love it so far and can't wait to see it done completely. Gotta love those WIP threads