Brute de Forge Full Tang WIP

P. McKinley

P. McKinley

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Jan 27, 2008
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I have a very small, simple, basement shop along with my propane forge and a few woodworking machines in a backyard shed. Not having a surface grinder, and relying on my eye mostly to gauge "flat" and "true" makes this project especially challenging for me. However, tackling a brute de forge, full tang fighter has been on my list for quite a while and the chance to build one as part of a mirror-matched set provided just the right opportunity. One polished finish, forge finish for the other - both with Ebony and Thuya burl handles, front and rear bolsters, carbon fiber and s.s. pins. I'll just be showing the brute de forge build as I haven't taken many photos of the polished build, but the template is exactly the same.

While forging this blade, the 9 yr old boy from down the road stopped by. I let him pound away on the blade for a few heats and you'll see his contribution in the form of many of the ball peen marks. I wanted to give the exposed blade flats some texture so I had him beat some dings into the blade faces. As well, when forging the blade I wasn't able to drawn the steel down quite as far as I wanted to get the full length of the finger guard I had envisioned, so I had to re-draw the handle template to accommodate the available steel.

So here I go.....

1/4" x 1 1/2" W2 from Aldo:


First few blows to start shaping the tip:


Blade is forged and cooling from its first normalizing cycle:


Roughly profiled:


Dialing-in the profile:


Draw filing to true the faces:


Handle faces need particularly careful attention so as not to mar the forge finish on the blade flats:


Roughly flat and true, now I can clean up the profile:


Now Dykem blue applied to scribe in the grind lines. I use a file guide to scribe the plunge lines accurately:


I use a marble slab and an appropriately sized drill bit to scribe the edges:


Raised clip first. I use a variety of angles wooden block jigs to get this job done. This blade will be 20 degrees:


I use a worn 60 grit belt for the rough grind, then a 120 grit to clean it up. One side almost there:


T'other:


Now the bevels:


First passes to knock the edge down to the scribe lines:


Almost there:


One side rough ground with a fresh 60 grit followed by a fresh 120 grit:


Bevels are done:


And the flip side:


The bevels have been ground. Now I can hand sand the handle faces to a smooth and flat, to 180 grit:


Now more Dykem blue to layout the tang arrangement:


That where I'm at tonight. This is a bit of a daunting task for me as I need to get the handle slabs/bolsters to fit up perfectly or it'll look like crap. But, that challenge is what makes this so engaging and fun for me.

I would greatly appreciate any feedback, tips, etc.

More tomorrow.

-Peter
 
the only tip i have that seemed to work not bad when i tried it was that when you heat treat you can coat the blade in pencil prior to. The carbon from the pencil (or charcoal drawing works better), if completely coating the blade, cuts down on a lot of scaling and makes less finishing after.
 
Thank you folks. :thumbup:

I managed to get a bit done yesterday, albeit without a camera battery charger that apparently my wife had with her in her office.:thumbdn: When the battery arrived home...

.... I had drilled and chamfered the tang for pins and balance, as well as some additional hand lapping of the tang at 180 grit. I had also hand sanded the blade to 220 and applied clay. The blade is now ready for heat treat:









At the moment, the Weather Gods have decided to keep me out of the forge(70 cm of rain, winds at 90km) so heat treat will likely be late tonight or tomorrow.

Back with more.....

-Peter
 
While I might be accused of being lackadaisical, I do get the work done...... eventually. :p

The blade has been heat treated and tempered(along with two others):


Finish ground with a 220 AO belt, then finally an A65 Trizack. I also used a 1/4" carbide bit in the Dremmel to cut in the sharpening notch at the base of the plunge:


Starting to refine the clip on an 800 grit whet stone:


Quarter-sawn African Blackwood bolsters(front) marked from the template and ready to cut(I later changed my mind and switched to Ebony. I didn't like the look of the light lines in the Blackwood):


Ebony bolsters cut out and ready to super glue to the tang and drill:


Bolsters are fitted, and the ray-cut Thuya burl handle slabs are marked, cut, and ready to fit to the tang:


Toady I'll be fitting the handle slabs and the rear Ebony bolsters. Once all this is done, I'll start the hand sanding, etching and polishing of the blade. Then the final fitting and glue-up.

More to come....

-Peter
 
Very cool :). Can I ask how you ground the clip on that other knife where it's curved? Do you use the same angle block setup? I'm imagining it's kind of like a recurve that I try to sharpen (and do poorly at...). The 2" platen doesn't want to evenly get into that curve...is that correct?


Jeremy
 
Jeremy - If you are referring to the middle of the three heat treated blades in that first photo above...

Yes, I ground the clip on the same angled wooden blocks. I just use use about 1/3 of the platen towards the edge and am careful to make smooth consistent passes especially when the edge gets thinner. If I linger on one spot too long I then have a big gouge to contend with. A light touch helps also.

-Peter
 
Looks like this will be a really nice knife.
Can't wait to see how it looks finished.
Thanks for posting this WIP Peter.
I have enjoyed it.
 
P. McKinley said:
Jeremy - If you are referring to the middle of the three heat treated blades in that first photo above...

Yes, I ground the clip on the same angled wooden blocks. I just use use about 1/3 of the platen towards the edge and am careful to make smooth consistent passes especially when the edge gets thinner. If I linger on one spot too long I then have a big gouge to contend with. A light touch helps also.

-Peter
Click to expand...


Makes sense, thanks for the reply. I wondered about using the edge of the platen and immediately thought it could be a tough one for making ugly gouges if not really careful. Will have to try one of these days.

Jeremy
 
Back to it:

With the bolsters fitted and rough shaped I can then true the front edges of the handle slabs, mate them to the tang with super glue, then drill for pins and get them rough shaped. I've learned(that"trial and error" thing) to always remove any leftover/dried super glue with acetone from the tang and slabs once the pieces are disassembled. I do this for all pieces concerned, every time otherwise I won't get a flush joint, which results in a wonky final fit-up.


I use a worn, but still sharp, 50 grit belt to remove the bulk alllllmost down the tang:


Slabs rough shaped to the tang, now I can mark and clean up the rear end of the handle slabs:


Rear bolster pieces cut, contact surface trued and matched to respective handle faces - being careful to match up proper grain orientation:


Rear bolsters super glued, one at a time, to the tang for pin/lanyard tube drilling:


Everything all drilled and reamed, fitted together and final rough shaping done to the profile of the butt-end.


Pin stock and lanyard tube:


I'm using carbon fiber pins for the handle slabs. They are cut 3/4's through using a 24 tpi blade :


Then flipped over and scored deeply with a sharp razor knife to sever the outer fibers:


And finally sawn the rest of the way:


Pins are marked and cut, then trued and lightly chamfered/beveled on a worn 120 grit::


Everything dry fitted:


Checked with a back light for gaps:


Disassembled ready for final clean up and blade polishing:


The front faces and finger notch of the front bolsters are cleaned up using a Dremmel Trio sanding drum(they are taller than the standard Dremmel drums) chucked into my drill press:


And thus begins the final hand sanding, etching and polishing in an effort to bring out the best in what promises to be a pretty nice hamon:


Well, that's my lunch break. Hopefully I'll get the blade polished and some detailing done to the front bolster so its ready for final assembly later tonight.

Thanks for watching along.

-Peter
 
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So.... hand sanding.
I started at 320 to gave it a good scrubbing and clean up the plunges. Then to Norton 400 wet/dry:


I'll go from 400 to 600, then to 1000 grit Black Ice.
I'm working my way down the blade from plunge to tip with diagonal 1000 grit strokes cleaning up the lengthwise 600 strokes:


Its a big jump from 600 to 1000 grit but I get a good clean blade with only two or three strips:


Then lengthwise with 1200 grit Black Ice. I'll finish up with full-length strokes from plunge to tip, using the lightly radiused(is that a word??) edge of the wood block, with fresh grit on every other stroke, until all the little fish hooks are gone and the scratch pattern is even and clean. As I did each grit on the main bevel I also did the same procedure for the raised clip so both bevels were in sync with grit and scratch pattern.


The hamon is starting to appear. This will not be the final finish as I still need to do all the above to the other side. When both sides are at a clean 1200 grit, I'll go back and give both sides a final, careful, perfect few strokes before etching. It was getting late so I only did one side of the blade and left the other side for tomorrow morning.


I did get the front face of the bolsters cleaned up before calling it quits. Using a wooden dowel, and/or a lightly radiused(again) copper bar wrapped with sandpaper, I started at 320 and took it to 600 grit. I also lightly scribed in the lines I'll need to cut in the designed bevels:


600 grit and scribed. Still much work left. And yes, I know the top edges aren't flush, its not an issue.



That's all for tonight.

-Peter
 
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