WaddWatsonEllis Belduque WIP

[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.

[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.