WaddWatsonEllis Belduque WIP

[Messerist]

Any slappin' should be done "before" WWE gits his Belduque

[GunClick Rick]

Damn Josh! Hope i win the lotto soon

[Josh Dabney]

Well Pards,  there's still a bunch of work that needs doin on the silver throat but sometimes ya just wanna break new ground ya know.  So I decided to put the finish work on the throat aside for the time being and git to working on the toe.

When I ordered the .040 sheet for the throat and toe body pieces I went ahead an ordered a piece of .0625 (1/16") sheet also to use for the "fin" (for lack of a better term).  I figure it'll be a bit stouter than the .040 but the 1/8" would certainly be overkill and just adding un-needed weight to the sheath.

Here we've traced the profile of the sheath and an outline giving us plenty of extra meat just because.


Now we cut out the fin and fit it up to the sheath body.

[Josh Dabney]

Moving forward we trace the sheath with about 3/8" extra and cut out 2 pieces of .040 for the toe body panels


Just as we did with the throat pieces we heated to a dull red and quenched in water to anneal the body pieces


Now we're ready to begin forming the sides of the toe.


This time I'm using a piece of an old broom handle as a punch to form the silver.  The smaller surface of the wood allows us to work the silver over the curvature of the sheath.

[Josh Dabney]

We're getting close on this side now


Here you can see how much extra material we have to cut off this body panel


test fitting and fine tuning 


Here we're lining up the fin right where we want it to end up and marking on the body with a pencil where the body panel needs to meet up to the fin.

[Josh Dabney]

Now we begin fitting the body to the fin right on the sheath body.  You can see we still need to take some silver off the edges of the body panel to get a tight fit.  I used the flat platen and an 80 grit belt to SLOWLY grind down the edge of the panel a little at a time and test fitting alot to get down to a tight fit.


Clamped up and ready to braze side #1 to the fin


Here we've got it brazed and can move on to side 2.  


Now we've got the first side all brazed up.  NOT very pretty is it  

[Josh Dabney]

Now we repeated everything we just did with side #2 and begin tuning for a good fit on the sheath and match to side #1



Git everything just where we want it and braze up side 2


Now we begin using a combination of the grinder (to remove blobs)  files (to remove bulky braze) and slack belt grinding and hand sanding to clean things up.

[Josh Dabney]

Started on the other side but still got a ways to go


Thats as far as I got with the toe today but I figured it about time for a quick pic of the whole enchilada with a 12" ruler for size comparison   


Aught to make some good progress with the silver work tomorrow Pards and eventually we'll get to the point where we can finish off the sheath body  to prep for mounting the throat and toe.

-Josh

[Dave Cole]

Looking good brother, can't wait to see it in person when I get over there.Dave

[WaddWatsonEllis]

Forty Rod,

Gee, Thanks *VBS*

[WaddWatsonEllis]

Josh,

This is really special ... I just showed the pic to my roomie and even he had to admit it was really something!

[GunClick Rick]

Totally bitchin dude!

[KidTerico]

Josh thats one great piece of art your creating. KT

[Josh Dabney]

Thanks alot fer all the nice comments Pards.   Sure is startin to come together now 

Today we're gonna see how I went about closing the opened bottom sections of the toe.  There are different ways to go about this so this is just how I decided to do it.  We begin by lining up our 1/8" silver sheet how it will sit on the toe and tracing where we need to cut it out.


Now we've got it rough cut so we size things up and make some marks where we need to grind away silver to achieve the needed shape.


Getting close to where we wanna be with this side. 

[Josh Dabney]

Now we are going to use our low temp silver solder to cap this toe off.   Remeber that everything else is brazed with the 1400 degree brazing rod so we should be able to get this soldering done with no risk of overheating the braze


Now we'll take a quick trip across the grinder to clean it up a little and see how our joint looks before investing alot of time in the hand work.


Looks like we've got a good joint and can proceed with doing hand filing and sanding to shape up the toe and remove excess solder and braze.

[Josh Dabney]

Here is what we're starting out with, my most aggressive cutting file


Here is a file that I've ground the teeth off the edge making it a "safe edge" file.  This file is used to get right down into the corner without cutting into the body part of the toe


Now before we go gittin the cart before the horse we're gonna stop with working on this side before it gets too purdy an fabricate and solder the cap on the other side.  


A bit of solder and Voila
 

[Josh Dabney]

Now before we go wastin a bunch of time cleaning up the fin we'll grind the fin down to it's final shape and then do the finishin


Here's a good shot to show that we really only got the shape of the cap close before soldering it on and will do the final shaping as part of the hand finishing


Sure though I had taken a few more pics of the process of filing and hand sanding to get to a buff-able finish on the toe 
I guess not, LOL  but here we are after clean-up and a quick buff with white buffing compound. 

I should mention here that buffers are E-X-T-R-E-M-E-L-Y   dangerous tools and should be used only by those who respect it's power to make a projectile out of whatever is being buffed.  Thankfully we didn't have any safety problems here



Thats all for todays installment Pards !  Thanks again to all the folks who are follerin along or just stopping in to check out the Belduque

Josh 

[WaddWatsonEllis]

Josh,

That is just plain georgeous!


I wamt it!  I want it!  I want it!

(I feel like a three year old kid ... second childhood maybe?)

[Josh Dabney]

Now that we've got the toe purdy much finished we're gonna git back to working on the throat.

We're getting started by marking out which side of the top faces the front just so we avoid any mistakes while grinding the top to final shape.


Here you can see how the top of the throat sticks out from the sheath body creating a shelf that will keep the sheath from slippin down into WWE's botas.


Now we're gonna git started with cleaning up the solder joint that connects the top of the throat to the body. The first tool we're using to get rid of the bulk is a regular old wood chisel.


This shot shows just how thick the solder is here,  LOL

[Josh Dabney]

Of course makin knives is always hazardous and I hardly notice small nicks, cuts, scratches etc.  but things like this do tend to happen regularly 


Moving forward we progress to hand sanding the joint we've been working on


Although I still need to do some more work with sandpaper a gave the throat a quick trip over the buffer to show exactly where I need to focus my sanding to get an even hand sanded finish thats ready to be buffed to the final finish


WWE had asked that the sheath be made to carry the knife edge forward so this is how things are comming together

[Josh Dabney]

Now due to the fact that ole WWE requested edge forward carry after I had made the damascus lock something needed to be done because going edge forward would have sandwiched the lock between the knife handle and WWE's leg.  I had to do a bit of thinking on this and figured before making a new piece I'd try to see if I could modify the one I made to work correctly.  A couple of strategic twists helped get things squared away.


Now that I've got the lock working as intended it's time to allign it on the throat and use our transfer punch to mark where the pin needs to go on the top of the throat.


Punched


Drilled.  I drilled the hole almost all the way through but not quite.

[Josh Dabney]

Now we insert a silver pin into the hole, flux, and solder it in place.


Now we can put the damascus in place and trace the shape to match the throat top


Now we've got the lock completed and fit together and all the shaping done on the throat and toe so we can take it all apart now

[Josh Dabney]

With the sheath all apart we need to continue the hand finish of the throat and get it buffed to the final finish before installing the lock .  Now that we're essentially done with our throat and toe we can begin putting the finish on the sheath body.



Sure is messy business,  LOL. 


We're getting there now Pards !


Of course we did have to clean up all the solder from around the pin

[Josh Dabney]

Lets just have a quick look Fellas

[Josh Dabney]

Now our retension lock is made from a piece of damascus but is currently covered in scale from all the heating and bending it took to get it into this shape.  To get the damascus to etch and reveal the pattern we've got to remove all that scale.  It's kind of a pain in the rear but the only way to accomplish this task is with sandpaper wrapped around some pinstock but it's a nice touch and certainly worth the extra effort.


Here it is etched



And now all the prep is done so we can install the lock on the throat by slipping it down over the pin and peening the pin




Here's a final shot of the throat and toe ready for the final installation once the sheath body is ready.