Mosaic d guard bowie wip ALL DONE

keithf

keithf

Joined
May 29, 2006
Messages
992
G'Day all, a very good client of mine asked me to make a D guard Bowie and take some pics along the way, as I have done for him on some other projects in the past. A photo album makes the knife extra special I think.
Again, sorry for the lack of photography skills.
Not an in depth look at all the processes but enough I think. You can tell me what you think.
This is the first D guard I have made, so I'm pretty excited about this project.
All comments welcome. Here we go!
Start of with some 1075 and 15N20. 3 billets 0f 21 layers.


A bit of cleaning up and tack em together.
Here is the plan.


Ya with me so far?
So now I have the billets welded, time to manipulate under the hammer.


Draw out and restack and continue.


A little more as it progresses
Cheers Keith
 
Last edited:
Thanks guys, hope you enjoy the ride. David, not in your league mate, but giving it a crack.
So after a bit of cutting and restacking, I forged the billet on the bias and resquared and drew it out and made a 6 way and rewelded. Squared up tacked the billet onto some bar stock so I could cut the tiles.



laid the tiles out and mig welded the seams. At this stage I made 2 billets of tiles and then rewelded them back together to give me one real long piece. I can get a good weld heat in the forge at about 10" long. The inside diameter of my welding forge is 14"



Not a real good photo but here it is in one bar while I was strecthing it out.




So I have enough material for the blade and fittings and another blade. Time to forge the inner core to shape.






Gotta go, its my mother in laws 84th birthday today and we are taking her out for lunch. Hmmm, Lobster and prawns ( shrimp for you folks) and cold,cold beer. Doesnt get much better than that I reckon :D
Cheers Keith
 
Happy birthday to your mother in law. Sounds like a great dinner. Patiently, well kind of, waiting for more.
Brion
 
Dang!!!! When did forge welding turn into calculus class? :eek::D
 
Keith,

That's looking good. Lunch also sounds great. I have a love of fresh seafood and that sounds like a very nice birthday present.

Thanks for sharing. Please keep us in the loop as you progress.

Gary
 
Bring it on and stop being such a tease. Lunch with mother-in-law indeed! ;)

Cheers...Pete
 
Thanks again everyone.
Now I have the outer bars to make. You can see the progression on the right hand side of the board. Some twisted Ws.
Here we are cuttting and restacking ready for another weld.



Once welded, put them in the twisty maker. 1 clockwise, 1 anticlockwise.



Resquared and reduced by 50% to reveal the axis of the twist. welded back to back ,draw out into a square bar.



After a bit of cleaning up I set up the inner core and forge to shape the outer bars. I did this with the oxy, a little better contol on the heats and I only have 1 pair of hands.



When I have it all to shape with a nice tight fit, I made a frame out of some bits and pieces. Its hard to see in the photo but I cut some strips of stainless foil so the blade doesn't stick to the frame during the welding process. Tack weld it. Then into the forge for a weld. This is another first for me ( using a frame that is ) Weld took and I'm very happy with the result. Bit of grinding to get the frame off and clean up the tack welds, forge out the shape.





Quick phone call to my client to check what length the blade should be. 14 Inches, yikes :eek:. And forge out the ricasso and tang.



More to follow.
Cheers Keith
 
this is an excellent thread! Thanks for the insight, looking forward to more :)
Love me a WiP!
 
Awesome Wip Keith.
 
Thanks again for all the encouraging words guys
So A bit of cleaning up to do. I'm going to be doing a bit of cattle carting on this one as I don't want to forge the bevels in and disrupt the pattern. Flat ground with a convex edge a tad over 1/4 high. Here I am grinding the convex on the slack belt after heat treat therapy.



I cut my clips in by hand. I have a lot more control this way, It really doesn't take very long and besides my grinding skills doing clips, suck.



Time to do some hand rubbing, YAY. Because of the convex edge I use a rocking motion on the blade, must remember Keith,must remember, must remember....... pull don't push!




Time to make some fittings. I forged a triangular piece left over from cutting the tiles into a spacer.



A bit of cleaning up to do then onto the surface grinder.



Then cut the slot on the mill.



Need to cut a thread on the tang. I grind a round section then finish file to the appropriate size for the button die





Okay now its time to make the guard. Forge out the piece with a taper.



Now I have to admit I made 3 guards. The first one I made out of scrap steel as an experiment so I'd work out the length I needed etc. Well I did it on the horn of the anvil,,,,,,,,,,,, um well, made a bloody mess of that, but I did get an idea of how much steel was required. Plan B I forged out the taper( larger at the butt and smaller at the ricasso) and bent it with the aid of the oxy in the vise. Well hit my dimension marks real well but the bends were 90 degrees pretty much. It looked hideous imo. Well beat it out and up a bit until I turned it into um,,,,,,,,,,"something" that I could probably enter into an art gallery and call it untilted.
Plan c I made a pattern out of some hardwood and wrapped some steel strapping around it and used it as a form to bend the guard material around with the aid of the oxy.



Here it is with the spacer and Walrus tusk handle ready for some final tweaking.


Some more later on.
Cheers Keith
 
Last edited:
I would love to tour around your workshop one day Keith.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top