WaddWatsonEllis Belduque WIP

[Josh Dabney]

Howdy Pards,

Well it's bout time fer another knifemaking WIP (work in progress) thread.

I'm assuming that the Knifenuts here in The Cutting edge have some interest in the tools, materials, methods, and madness that go into the making of a custom, handmade knife.

This'n here will give a good example of what goes into making a full tang fixed blade with bolsters and a silver wire inlay.

We're starting out with a billet of Random Patterned 5160/15N20 Damascus steel and our Belduque concept drawing.



Now that we've got our plan set and our pattern tranferred to our billet we'll head over to the bandsaw and cut away everything that doesn't look like a knife.



Now having our billet rough cut we'll head over to the grinder to tune up the profile with an 80 grit belt.  You'll notice that I left a bit of steel on the bottom of the bolster area.  The purpose of this is to get a perfect fit of the bolster and tang so I'll wait to clean up this hard to reach area until I've got the bolster material fit up and can grind both bolsters and the tang to shape all at once.



Now onto the bolsters.  At this point I've cut the bolsters from a German Silver flatbar then squared them up with the spine of the knife and super glued them both in place.  The super glue is a temporary bond at this point and is just enough to get the pinholes layed out, drilled, and reamed.  A sharp swat with a hammer will knock the bolster right back off the blade once were done with this stage.



Moving on to handle pin layout we'll cut out the hand drawn pattern of our wire pattern and tape it to the handle so we can center punch all the pin holes that are going to go through the handle material.  With silver wire it's very important to have a very solid plan for the pattern because the pin holes need to be drilled before heat treating the blade and will correspond with the wire.



Here we find ourselves at the drillpress ready to drill out our center punched pinholes.  This particular knife is gonna have 2 different size pins that go through the handle material 1/8"  &  1/16".  You'll notice how I marked the smaller holes with a sharpie to prevent drilling one of the small holes with the larger bit.  This wouldn't be the end of the world but could cause allignment issues down the road or throw off the wire pattern.



This is where we're leaving off for today.  Stay tuned right here in The cutting Edge for more to come !

I do appologize for the pic quality in some of the shop pics.  Lighting could be much better because I use a one of those tall household lamps with 3 bulbs that I move from station to station. 

Also, PLEASE feel free to comment, critique, and ask any questions you may have reguarding the knife, process, tools, materials or anything else that's of interest to you.

Thanks alot for following along and participating in the creation of  "The Belduque"    -Josh 

[Ned Buckshot]

Thanks Josh for sharing your talent.

This'll be an interesting one to follow.

Ned

[WaddWatsonEllis]

Josh,

I sent you an email, but just wanted to put it public how special it is to watch my particular Phoenix rise from the flames!

Thank you so much!

[Ned Buckshot]

I bet your way excited WWE, I know I sure would be!

Ned

[WaddWatsonEllis]

Ned,

Yes I am excited!  In fact, I am going to make a whole new pic for my profile once my Josh Dabney Belduque and Botas (Mexican/Spanish/Californio leggings worn instead of chaps) from Chuck Burrows arrives!

[Ned Buckshot]

Can't wait for the new picture.

You'll look like you are hangin' out at the Cantina in 1840 Monterey!

Ned

[WaddWatsonEllis]

Actually, you are quite close ... *S*.

The place where I like to do my pictures is in a building that was originally Sam Brannon's in Old Sacramento. The bar was saved from destruction and a fireplace ... it is over 150 years old and comes from Leadville CO (i.e., home of the 'Unsinkable Molly Brown).

Here is their website:

http://www.fatsrestaurants.com/fatcity/

And below is a small pic of the barback (about 1/3rd of its height)....

[WaddWatsonEllis]

P.S. My profile pic was taken right in front of the pic above ....

[Shotgun Steve]

Looks like it's coming along fine Josh. I am sure WWEllis is going to be very happy with it. Almost makes
me wish I would have ordered one myself. Take care.
  Shotgun Steve

[GunClick Rick]

Boy do i love Ole Sac.If ya see Dutches say hi she's a single horse pullin the carriage,she liked my harmonica playin.

That's is gonna be one heck of a cutter,nice to see the process,thank you~~Were a couple lucky guys Wad,i got a couple Ned knives and your gettin this one from Josh.Great talent man

[WaddWatsonEllis]

Rick,

Actually I have the best of several worlds ....

The knife listed here is just about done ....

I put an antelope antler (from Cowboy 316) on the cheap bowie that I had ... and it makes it look like a new knife.

Then Chuck Burrows took an inexpensive Indian Damascus Bowie and put leather over the stag handle, and made it look 'cowboy', remaking the sheath in the process.

Finally, Ned took that knife I had put the antler on and made a wonderful sheath for it ....

I am so blessed!

[WaddWatsonEllis]

Rick,

Old Sacramento is where I will be doing tours as a docent, so I will keep an eye out for Duchess ... and if I run into her, I will try to get a pic ...

[WaddWatsonEllis]

Shotgun Steve,

BTW, if my memoriy serves me (always doubtful at best), you actually have a ANTIGUE version ...

Could you reprint the pic here to show how close Josh is to the real thing?

Thanks!

(And I think we both were very lucky in what we have found!)

[GunClick Rick]

Wanted to come back when i had more time to read all the instruction,very interesting Josh,free hand on that enlay design?Wow! I can see by you tutering where the drillin holes part could be a tad tricky.I take it you do the enlay design first then shape the handle material? This is great to see..

[Gun Butcher]

Josh, that is going to look fantastic. If you keep this up I might actually be able to call myself a Knife Butcher one of these days. I have certainly learned alot for your post. Thanks for taking the time to do this for all of us.

Wadd, yer a lucky man. can't wait to see you in all your finery.

[Josh Dabney]

Thanks fer the comments fellas !

GCR-   Yup, Freehand all the way.  Also do all my grinding after profiling freehand.  Sometimes profile freehand too, LOL.  Depending on the shape of the blade'n such.

As fer the wire, The handle will be attatched and ground about 97 % to shape before putting the wire in.  It's a little hard to descibe but the wire has to "roll" around the contours of the handle 3-dimentionally.   The wire has to stay 90 degrees to the surface of the wood so as the wire is making a scroll shape it will also be rolling "twisting" the the left or right and diving or rising as the pattern follows the contour of the handle.

It'll be much more understandable when we get to pics of that part, LOL.

Stay tuned for another update tomorrow that will take us through grinding in the bevels of the blade.

Take care pals,  Josh 

[Dave Cole]

It's starting off great Josh.That new bandsaw table looks good too.Dave

[Josh Dabney]

That table is the Bee's knees !!!!!   

I honestly don't know how I got along without it   

Thanks alot Buddy !

Josh

[Josh Dabney]

Heya Pards,

Today we'll be taking a gander at and discussing the grinding of a full height flat grind and a convex edge.

The first step in the process is covering the "edge" of our blade blank with Dykem layout fluid.  The purpose of this is to give us a high contrast backround to layout the edge of the blade.  The Dykem seems to hold up to the heat produced while grinding and repeated dunking in water and wiping clean much better than a permanent marker which is often used for this purpose.

Once the layout fluid is dry we use our digital calipers to measure the thickness of the blank then divide by two and scribe where the actual edge of the blade will end up in the center of the blade



Now I put one bolster on with both pins in place and make a pencil mark on the leading edge of the bolster.  In keeping with the Belduque style blade I want my plunge line to run right up the bolster face almost giving the appearance of no plunge at all when the blade is completed.  Now I clamped my file guide onto the blade lined up with my pencil mark to insure that I don't grind too far towards the rear of the knife.   That mistake is very easy to do and if it happens the only solution is to make the bolsters skinnier.



Now we're ready to begin grinding the actual bevels of the blade.  Here's a shot of the lead in grind.  There are several benefits to the lead in.  The main benifit is that putting your blade against the belt with a 90 degree corner on the blade edge will shear the grains right off the belt seriously reducing the usable life of the belt.   I grind my lead in at around 30 or so degrees because it gives just a little wider "flat" to go back to on the next pass.  The other benefit of the lead in grind is that your thinning the edge of the blade down to .040 or there abouts which reduces the risk of getting the edge off center later in the grinding process.



In the next shot you'll see how we "walk" our grinds up the blade towards the spine.  It's VERY important to keep thing as EVEN as possible from the left to right side while grinding.  This means we grind up an 1/8 or so on one side then flip and even things up. In one word here's why we do this- WARP.  

Say for example you were to grind the left bevel all the way to the spine before touching the right side.  What will happen is this- As your grinding and heating up the left side of the blade the steel will warp towards the heat.  So when your done with that side you'll have a good flat bevel on the left but because of the warp you won't be able to get the right side flat and you'll end up with an edge that will seriously hook off to the right because of the warp that happens while grinding the second side.   this is another thing thats kinda difficult to put into words but the bottom line is to grind as evenly as possible  





All the grinding thus far has been done with a 40 grit belt.  So far we've seen the "Hogging" stage of the grinding.   What happens with a rough belt is that you'll have a uniform looking surface but in fact there will be very deep errant scratches under the surface that will reveal themselves as you begin to refine the surface.   You'll notice the waves and ridges in the grind at this point. While hogging we're only giving a half hearted effort at a smooth grind. We'll really begin to fix up our grinds after switching to an 80 grit. We'll also use this belt to push our bevels right up to the brink of the spine.  We do NOT want to grind into the spine !!  




From here we'll now go to a 220 grit.  At 220 we don't want to be doing a bunch of grinding.  At this point we are refinding the surface and making very minor adjustments to our grind lines.  I'm also adding a "convex" edge at this point down to around .020 which is about as thin as I'll go before heat treating the blade.  



At this stage we're gonna give this blade a light etch and have a look at what the damascus pattern looks like now that we're getting close to final dimentions on the bevels.




Now for a flat grind we could go to a 400 grit belt and refine the blade further at this point but comming off the belt grinder can be very decieving as to the actual quality of the flat.  So we are going to go to the JUDGE !  The un-flinching, un-wavering, brutally honest and cruel measurer of the flat grind....  The disk sander.   I started out with some 320 grit paper on the disk and refined the bevels to see what I've "actually" got, not what it "looks like" I've got.  Lo and behold,  A low spot on the spine quicly reveals itself.



With this unfortunate but almost inevitable discovery we go right back to 120 grit on the disk to get a TRUE flat.  And we finish up with another quick etch to see the pattern again.





Thats where we're leaving off for today folks.  
Don't be shy now Pards. Please ask any question you have,  Josh

[WaddWatsonEllis]

Josh,

Simply breathtaking!

You make it look so easy and matter of fact ... I can see so many places where I would have made permanent and ugly mistakes ...

But this knife is a work of art!