WaddWatsonEllis Belduque WIP

[Josh Dabney]

Howdy Pards,

Finally got a little sleep and some time in the shop with Belduque 

As I mentioned previously,  I REALLY want to include the spanish notch on this knife but unfortunately the carbide burr would barely touch the hardened blade      As we know though,  Necesity is the Mudder of invention and sometimes it pays to experiment a little.  Since the carbide didn't do the trick I decided to try out some diamond burrs in the dremel to do the carving and it is working as good or better than the carbide on the un-hardened blade. 

Here is the proposed area of steel to be removed.



The next progression of pics give an idea of the different bits used to begin with the largest size for bulk removal and getting progressivly smaller.  The steel doesn't wear or dull the diamond abrasive but it will shear the abrasive off the burr so they do still wear out and lose their cutting ability.  The smallest of the burrs did wear out relatively quickly so I wasn't able to finish the notch but I don't forsee it being a problem once I get to the store to get some more burrs.  As of now though I'll be going back to working on the handle for the time being.






Danielle is home and doing wonderfully.  Eating well, sleeping, and doing a good job of maintaining her temp 

-Josh

[Shotgun Steve]

Hi Josh,

I am glad to hear that Danielle is doing so well. I guess it will be a while before you get a full nights sleep again
but then babies are worth it.
Looks like the diamond is doing the trick. Slow going but at least it's working. Take care.

Steve

[WaddWatsonEllis]

Josh,

The knife looks absolutely stunning already!

I keep going back to that movie (I think it was Wayne's World) where the two nerds bow and worship and keep saying, "I'm not worthy!"

Now I know how they felt ... Wow!

[Josh Dabney]

Back to handle work Pards.

Here you can see I've got the first scale placed where I want it (tight against the bolster) and held in place with a C-clamp and ready to drill the first pin hole.



As soon as I drill the first hole I always put a pin in that hole before moving on to ensure nothing moves and changes the relationship between the wood and bolster.



I also keep inserting pins till I've got 3 in and then proceed with drilling the rest of the holes.  Here is the first side done.

[Josh Dabney]

I apologize for this lousy pic but it's an important one 

Here yall see where the pre-drilled allignment pin holes that are outside the profile of the handle come into play to keep our scales bookmatched and allow us to transfer our pin holes from the first side through the second.   To drill the second side I chuck my bit up in the corless drill and drill through by hand.   The hole in the first scale will keep the bit going straight.



Pin holes seem to have a knack fer being too tight and fighting ya every step of the way so at this stage I like to put pins through ALL the holes just to prevent problems down the road 




Now that I've got my pin holes done I'll put one side on at a time and use the bandsaw to cut the wood as close to the tang as I can. It's important to not that you do NOT want to hit the tang with the saw as even grazing it will chew some DEEP marks into the tang that will have to be removed.

[WaddWatsonEllis]

Josh,

Every time I get one of your posts, I have this love/hate thing going on.

I LOVE the step by step posts with all the pics.

I hate to see them end ... I just want to shout 'More! More!'

[Josh Dabney]

Here you can see that I've ground a radius around the perimeter of the wood.  Also worth noting that this was all done with a used 80 grit belt running the same speed so yall get a good idea how easily scorched the end grain of the wood is.  The scorch isn't a problem at this point but as we approach the final dimension of the handle it will become extremely important Not to scorch the wood.



Here we see how those marks I put on the inside of the scales keep things in order.  Also the circle at the top of the left scale is where I missed drilling a pin hole      No big deal though I just put a few pins in and clamped the scales in the vise and drilled it.



Now I 've got both scales bandsawed, and radiused with the 80 so I put both scales on the knife and switched to a brand new 220 grit belt to cut the wood down flush to the tang.  Now she's really begining to come together  





Now it's time to get back on the blade itself and get it prepped for the final etch  

[ChuckBurrows]

I've been out of the loop on this one but so far (despite the "problems"- part of a knifemakers' lot but still a pain in the patootie) what I see is DYNOMITE!

A hint Josh - for the Spanish Notch - heat sink the main part of the blade and with a pencil flame bring the notch area to at least a blue - it will help a lot in doing what needs to be done!

[WaddWatsonEllis]

What a gorgeous piece of art ... it is so pretty that I almost hate to wear it ...

Now I think I know how the Sikh felt when he pulled his knife and had to cut himself a little ... cause the knife had to 'taste' blood every time it was drawn .... out of respect for the knife and its workmanship ...

BTW, I will be sending you a PM ... got 'nother idea ... (I know, OH, NO, he's got another idea!)

[The Elderly Kid]

I've been following this thread with deep interest because I love edged weaponry. But it got me to thinking - did the old smiths have anything like this sort of gadgetry, or did they just do it all by hand and eye? Crafts in the old days were learned by apprenticeship, meaning that by the time a young man became a master craftsman he had been spending around 20 years doing nothing but make knives or whatever. Now, I know that we tend to over-romanticize the good old days. I've inspected many museum-display knives and swords and there are usually numerous flaws readily visible - misalligned rivets, uneven fullers, crooks in the blade, etc. It's just the limitations of hand work. In any case, great work! And don't feel too bad about the flaw in that first blade. I've seen the same thing in Japanese blades made by master smiths. It's just an unavoidable hazard when layering different qualities of steel in a forge.

[WaddWatsonEllis]

Elderly Kid,

In 'The Pirates of Penzance' (first played in 1879 so generic to our period; I checked LOL) one pirate remarks about the matronly and mature Ruth,

'There are the remains of a fine woman about her'.

So I think of the Belduque attempt #1; there is also the 'fine remains' of a boning knife (for fishing) or a great sandwich knife ...

[WaddWatsonEllis]

I think there is plenty of apprenticeship still going on ... still a lot of stinkers to be made before one starts making beautiful pieces such as this.

And,  truth be told, I would imagine that there are a lot of masters around to give help ... only now the 'help' arrives by email ...

[Josh Dabney]

Thanks Yall fer participatin and commentin,  It sure is appreciated.

Chuck, I had not even thought of drawing back the notch but it is a GREAT idea and would've made things much easier on me, LOL.

EK-   WWE hit the nail on the head.  Much of knifemakers work can be figured out pretty easily from reading, videos, and talking with experienced makers.   But many things also benefit from one on one instruction and most makers will invite a newbie into their shop for a lesson on X Y Z  technique or whatever.  And so, in the same sort of apprenticship way knowledge and experience get passed from the old to the young

We've got alotta ground to cover here Pards so let's get at it 

Here we've got the bevels hand sanded and are working on sanding the clip.  Take note of the felt padding used under the blade to protect our new hand sanded finish from errant scratches.  From here on out we need to be very carefull about not marring the finish on the blade in anyway.   I am sanding the clip with the paper hard backed.  It wont cut as well, fast, or last as long as with a slightly soft sanding block (cork) but it also won't washout the grindline on the clip.

[Josh Dabney]

Finished up the handsanding and moving on to etching my makers mark on the blade.  With this knife I chose the smallest stencil I had in hopes of keeping the mark a small detail and allowing the damascus to be the MAIN attraction.

Here we are ready to begin etching with the stencil Scotch taped to the blade, the ground wire connected to the tang, a Q-tip on the positive wire, and our bowl of etchant solution.  This is a homemade machine built with plans from the internet and the solution is also homemade (Tbsp. Salt,  Tbsp. Vinegar, 1/2 cup water)



Here it is after 4 trips over the stencil etching with 20 volts DC and 3 trips blackening the mark on 20 volts AC.  Pretty ugly huh.

[Josh Dabney]

And here we are after a minute of cleanup on the sandpaper.



Now because this is damascus and needs to be etched in Ferric Chloride and we want to preserve the makers mark we worked so hard to get we need to fill the mark with fingernail polish to protect it from the etch.



Now we let the polish dry fully before sanding with a hard backing one more time to remove the polish from the flats of the blade while leaving the mark filled.  Now we move on to cleaning the blade with alcohol and etching in the ferric. Here are some random shots of the etched blade.

[Josh Dabney]

We've come a long way here Pards and we've got the heart of the Belduque pretty much completed.  The next step is to attatch the bolsters to the blade which is a "make or break"  "pivotal" and very important step.   There are about a hundred ways to screw this up and set our progress back in any number of ways.

Here I've got my bolsters intalled on the blade and cut the pins of and ground them to the correct length.   1/2 the diameter of the pin sticking out on both sides is what we're looking for, or 1/16" in this case.  Any longer than that and there is a big risk that the pin will bend over to the side instead of expanding in diameter like we want.



Here I have "Upset" the pins.  This is hitting the pin with the flat side of the hammer to expand the pin to fill the hole in the bolster.   I should note that I did taper ream the bolsters before this process.    When upsetting be gentle at first getting the pin to expand on both sides flipping from side to side.   




Now that I've got the pins set-up it's time to switch to a 28 ounce smooth faced framing hammer to really hit the pins with the force needed to suck the bolsters down tight to the blade.

Of course this being my first time working with German Silver I ran into a problem I didn't expect.  The pin expanded so tight in the hole that it actually bulged the sides of the bolsters out a little but this leads me to believe that once finished out the pins will be invisible, which is the goal.  This is going to cause me a little clean up work but it's not a game changer for us and we will proceed without moving backwards 



Taht's all fer now Pards but check back again soon    Josh

[Shotgun Steve]

Thanks Josh thats pretty dang interesting to watch. That knife is sure going
to be a beauty!! It isn't even mine and I am drooling on the keyboards as the work
progresses.

Shotgun

[WaddWatsonEllis]

Steve,

You are so right about how gorgeous this knife already is, much less what it is yet to be ....

I sent Josh a PM that I now know exactly how they felt in the movie "Wayne's World" when they genuflected and intoned 'We are not worthy" ... Iam not worthy of this knife!

[Josh Dabney]

Glad some folks are enjoying this thread 

Moving on you'll see in this pic that I've begun shaping the bolsters at 220 grit and moved on to correcting the slight bulge that's in the face of the bolster.  I very carefully cut the bulge down with a file trying not to put any extra unwanted scratches in the pretty finish I had on the bolster face.  From there I finished it off by hand sanding with 320 then 500 grits on a hard backing



Problem solved 



Here I've pinned the scales on, traced the bolster on the front of the scales and pre-shaped the very front edge of the wood where it'll meet the bolsters to prepare for glue up.

[Josh Dabney]

Prepping all the surfaces to be epoxied by scoring with 60 grit paper.  



Here we are ready for glue up with tang and scales prepped and cleaned with alcohol, a cup with our epoxy, another cup with alcohol for clean up post clamping along with some paper towels for bulk clean up and q-tips for detailed clean up.  It's ESSENTIAL to get every bit of epoxy off the outside of the handle once the scales are clamped up.  Any residue on the wood will act as a resist to the stain that will be applied later and you'll end up with a pretty white spot on your handle.  The only cure for that is to sand away enough wood to remove all the epoxy and dye the handle again so we want to avoid that.  This is the big reason I stay away from super glue for handles because it will actually penetrate deeply into the wood and then you've got real problems.



Here we've got it epoxied and clamped up with two allignment pins in place which I remove once it's securely clamped up.