WaddWatsonEllis Belduque WIP

[Josh Dabney]

Some makers will epoxy the entire works, pins and all, at one time.  I do it like this for a couple reasons.  1. The most common pin error is overheating the pin while shaping the handle and scortching a ring around the pin.  This way I've got my handle 95 % shaped when I put the pins in so very little grinding needs to be done to the pins which reduces the risk of over heating.  2. I like to pein my pins so I dont want dried epoxy between the pin and the wood prefering to use a very tiny dab on the pin when putting it in and peening immediatly to prevent that from happening.

Here I've begun shaping the handle on a 220 slack belt



Here I've marked out the high spots I need to cut down in hand shaping this area of the handle



Here I've removed the bulk of the wood and defined the shape of the handle I'm looking for in this area with a Simmonds black diamond file. This perticular file has a mean cut and works great for rough shaping wood.

[Josh Dabney]

Now that we're colse enough on our handle shape to do the pinning we've got tor run our drill bit through all the holes to clean out the epoxy that squeezes into the holes



Here I've got the first pin in, cut to length, and ready to be upset.



Pinning handle material is a quite different animal from pinning bolsters.  With handles FINESSE  is very important and in all operations we'll go slowly with light hammer blows.  If we upset these pins like the bolster pins it would literally split the wood right in two so great care must be taken.  Here's #1 upset



Then peened



A bunch more just like that.



And a little clean up on the grinder.

[Josh Dabney]

Sketched on the main scrolls of the silver wire inlay



Here are the basic tools to do the inlay. Chisels, homemade from exacto knives.  Modified tack hammer. Wire. Pattern. And missing from the pic but frequently used is a small pair of diagonal cutters.



These next pics show how the chisels are used being pushed straight down into the wood.  You'll notice that as the scroll rolls around the curved surface of the handle the chisel cuts stay perpenducular to the surface of the wood.  We're not removing any wood here, just sperating the fibers of the wood to creat a channel for the wire to go in.

[Josh Dabney]

Now that our main scroll is cut in we've got to prep the wire for installation.  I'm doing about 3 feet or so at a time.  In this pic you can see that I've got the wire clamped to the edge of my bench and I've got a small sanding drum in the flex shaft of the Dremel tool.  This is what I use to sharpen the bottom edge of the wire.  After that I squeese the wire tightly in between some 60 grit paper to score the sides of the wire allowing the wood to get a better grip on the wire once it's grain is swelled back tight against the wire.



The next series of pics is pretty self explanitory.  Begin on one end and start tapping the wire into the channel and work your way to the other end.  There is a pic of the wire folding over, This is bad but does happen and when it does we've got to straighten it back up which is called "justifying the line".  This is dead soft wire and it is kinda a pain to work with IMHO.  I do know many folks who use dead soft wire but I can tell already that I prefer working with half hardened wire.  I'm thinking that it may be beneficial if my chisels were a touch wider with this soft wire but we're gonna tredge on and see how we come out.

[Josh Dabney]

Hey Pards,

I finished the wire on this side of the handle today and got 20 some more pics of the process which I'll be posting later on tonight. 

I am curious how much interest there is in this process itself ?   I'm happy to post all the pics with detailed explainations of whats going on but I think You've got the jist of the process thus far. 

So let me know what you think  All out ?  Or summary ?  Of the rest of the wire work ?

Thanks fer followin along and participatin Pards,  Thats what makes it worth while.

Here's one teaser shot,




-Josh   

[River City John]

Josh,
as a lurker, I am fascinated in the process. I would appreciate your tutorial no matter what. Even the most unskilled, such as I, gain encouragement by example such as yours.
River City John

[Messerist]

Impressed is too poor a word for my perception of your work.  What a privilege it is to observe the creation of this blade.

[WaddWatsonEllis]

Messerist and River City John pretty much said it all ...

I just took that 'teaser pic' and sent it to my 'boss' at the Sacramento Museum and to my assigned mentor ... they have listened to me verbally drool about this knife for so long that, now that it is really taking shape, they can appreciate what I am talking about....

And when I have the Botas to put the Belduque in, I promise to replace my profile pic with one in the California kit  ...

[Will Ketchum]

Josh, very nice.  I have enjoyed watching your progress with this knife,  I am amazed with your skills.

Will Ketchum

[Josh Dabney]

Allrighty Pards,

Seems like we've got a captive audience so we'll go all out 

Sometimes when you run one wire right up along side of another just a tiny bit of the top of the second wire will peen down on top of wire #1.   This happens alot an is actually a good thing because that seems to mean you've got them nice and tight together with no space or wood slivers in between.  Mostly this can be left till the wire is completed and cut down flat at the end.  Depending on where I'm at with my pattern and if any other wires will be in that area sometimes I'll zip it across a 220 belt to clean things up as I'm progressing.   This sure is an ugly process right up till the end LOL.



This scroll is small enough to get a good close-up of the channel ready for the wire,  the wire put in and ready to be snipped, and snipping the wire with the dikes.  You'll see in the 3rd pic that the end of the wire is snipped at an angle where it ends at a pin.  This makes it easier to direct that last little bit right up against the pin but more importantly allows just a little room for expansion from temp change so the wire doesn't buckle up in the future.

[Josh Dabney]

Many times when the end of the wire is near an area where it has to go over a curve in the wood shape it will pop back up on the end that you began with and need to be put back down.   When this happens you've got to work the wire so it forms to the curve of the wood.  If thick enough a couple swats toward the end will sink it but it will be under tension to pop back out on one end or the other so it needs to be "worked" to shape going slowly towards the end with many light taps.




At this stage I really started thinking the design was just a little too busy.  And I didn't really like that the pattern on the butt end reminded me of the Nike Swoosh, LOL.  So I compared with my original pattern and made some changes to un-clutter things just a little and improve the flow.



Here I've penciled the changes directly on the handle

[Josh Dabney]

When doing wire work I like to leave my handle big enough that I'm good to skim a few thousandths off the entire surface to level everything out when done but this area I decided was still just a bit too thick so I marked out the area to be cut down with the file prior to installing the scroll.



Here she is cut down and ready to redraw and install the wire.



This is one of those make or break ya moments that causes ya to sweat bullets.  You should be able to see that my chisle broke off while cutting the scroll.  Digging out a piece of the chisel without mangling up the surrounding wood can be a chore.  I worked on this piece for a good 20 minutes to get it out LUCKILY without damage.



I tried several different exacto blades and one of the other chisels trying to get it out with no luck before tying out one of my scrimshaw tools that won the battle.

[Josh Dabney]

Now I'm down a chisel    And the most important one, the skinniest    Whatever will I do ?   Have to make another'n  I reckon 

You've got to take it easy grinding on these blades because they are heat treated and any overheating will temper them to the point of being too soft to be any good so you've got to go SLOW and dunk it in water every couple seconds or so.  Otherwise it's no problem.




Now that I've got the wire done on this side I went ahead and gave it the first soaking of what I believe you Pards may call Vinegaroon.  2 OOOO steel wool pads disolved into a quart of white vinegar.   Although I screwed up the recipe I did learn it's use from our very own Chuck Burrows,  Thanks for that tip Chuck !      In laymans terms this stuff reacts with the wood to assist in bringing out the natural chatoyance of the curly maple.  My purpose right now is just to swell the grain of the wood to tighten it up on the wire.  I will do this 3 or 4 more times before all is said and done but this is good for now.  It's also worth noting that this concotion will etch or stain the steel so I soak it down good and be sure to wipe the steel dry !

[Dave Cole]

It's coming along nicely there, bud. Your also doing a great job on the WIP.The cool thing about WIP's is you will encourage some to make knives and discourage others from making knives, but the collectors see what trials and tribulations we makers have to go through to get the knife out.Talk with ya later bud.Dave

[Josh Dabney]

Now it's time for the magic to happen,  LOL

Transferring our wire pattern from the completed side to the other side.

We start with taping a piece of tracing paper to our completed side and tracing the wire with a pencil.  I also put a dot in the center of each pin to verify allignment on side #2



Now we pull the pattern and tape it to the other side.  You'll note that the pencil side of the tracing paper is now against the wood.  Get it taped in place then trace over the pattern with a ball point ink pen to complete the tranfer.





Now although the carbon from the pencil tranferred to the handle we still need to re-draw the pattern on the wood and make any minor adjustments needed

[Josh Dabney]

That's all for tonights installment Pards 

That also pretty much covers the silver wire inlay until both sides are completed and we move on to the finishing stages of the handle.  Tomorrow will be more of the same installing the wire on side #2 but I'll have my camera handy just in case I run into anything interesting during the install 

Thanks again fer followin along Pards and please feel free to ask any questions you may have.

Dave,  I sure hope nobody get's discouraged, LOL.   I always enjoy others wip's so I picked this one as it encompases such a variety of techniques to show.   It's alotta work but folks sure seem to be enjoying it which makes it all worth while to me 

-Josh

[GunClick Rick]

I ain't got the words man,that is fantastic!!!!!!! Josh thanks alot for lettin us watch...

[Curley Cole]

STUFF LIKE THAT JUST KNOCKS MY SOCKS OFF....
(typed that in caps just to let you know how entusatic I was about that...)

makes me want to bang my hands against the desk. (they were never great at the close work, but now they are damn near useless for even most tasks.

but my hat is off to ya. that is lookin beautiful.
thanks for the step by step.

curley

[WaddWatsonEllis]

Josh,

I think Dave Cole hit it on the nail about these WIPs ... it separates the 'Hey, I think I could do that' from the 'There is no way in hell that I would even try that' ... I always felt I was in the latter category ... and after seeing this I am for certain that I am better having this piece of art done ...

But even us 'No way in hell'-ers get to see what needs to be done and understand the value placed in each piece of work .... instead of just buying something existing off a shelf, we get to know just how much work is involved in doing this ....

[Messerist]

I'm lovin' this thread!  Just a comment on staining curly maple.  I use it a lot on my knives.  I use "Aqua Fortis" to stain the maple.  It is similar to Vinegaroon but instead of vinegear I use nitric acid to dissolve the steel wool.  After applying the aqua fortis the wood appears to be green.  I then use a heat gun to change the color to rich red and bring out the curl.  An application of water and baking soda neutralizes the acid.  After drying I use 0000 steel wool and boiled linseed oil to finish the wood.  I have never used it on an inlaid handle so I do not know what would happen when the aqua fortis meets silver.  I just thought I'd share how I do it.  Once again, this is an addictive thread and I can't wait to see the finished work.