WaddWatsonEllis Belduque WIP

[Dave Cole]

Cool looking pattern on that piece, Josh. Dave

[Angel_Eyes]

Josh, not wishing to be crass, but that knife is exactly the same shape as my 'Prestige' make carving knife, part of a knife set we got as a wedding present in '67.
What makes it a 'Belduque' ? And what does the name mean?

AE

[WaddWatsonEllis]

Well, some people would say that crass is my middle name ... I prefer outspoken ...

The Belduque was the hispanic equivalent of a Bowie, and used much the same way. Like a Bowie, the 'back of the edged side was also sharpened about a half to a third of the way ... which made in easier for stabbing or skinning an animal.

They are said to be related to Spanish kitchen knives ( In fact, the South American equivalent was called a Cuchillo Criolo). The Spanish knives are in turn thought to be taken from the Flemish kitchen knives ... and named after a certain beautiful duchess of the lowlands ... hence  Belle Duque to Belduque ( but that is just a wive's tale; I don't think that there is any documentation ... but what a great story!)

But here is some reading on Beluduques:

http://www.sanjacinto-museum.org/The_Battle/Weapons/Blades/Blades/

http://www.whirlwindtraders.com/chrisknifepage.html

Notice the 1750 era Belduque on the page ...

http://www.vikingsword.com/ethsword/facon/criollo.html

Notice the Cuchillo Criollo towards the bottom of the article (the one with the red background) ...

http://www.texasbeyondhistory.net/adaes/images/french-trade-2.html

The top knife on the vest is a Spanish Belduque...

Hope this helps .... but I think the main thing that separates a Belduque and Cuchillo from kitchen knifes is the sharpened opposite side of the blade ...

By the way, Vaqueros tended to wear them as a form of 'boot knife', with the handle sticking out of their Botas (i.e. leggings). If you blow up the bear hunting seen below, the rider in the foreground has one tucked into his right Botas with only the handle showing ... but it looks like a real handy place to wear it when on horseback.

[Advertising]

[Josh Dabney]

Angel eyes,

From the research I did, which is probably all the links WWE posted, it seems that the term Belduque was a term similar in our speak to Bowie.  Meaning that it pretty much means Big Ole' Knife, LOL. 

These knives were carried by drifting free spirited type of folks who lived by their own rules and carried the knives as an all purpose blade and examples from plain to highly ornate were found.  Too many of these folks their knife was their most prized possesion so perhaps even a poor drifter may have owned a more ornate example.

This is my interpretation based on the pics I've seen of historical Belduques, but not a copy of any specific example.

All the blades seem to be this basic shape with a multitude of different handle styles and it would seem to make sense that they were a derivitive of kitchen style knives.

-Josh 

[WaddWatsonEllis]

From my research on Californios and other hispanic riders, it seems that two things are so pandemic that most writers just mention them as fact ...

*That the average mounted Vaquero felt that any activity that could not be done on horseback was somehow below their dignity ... and that it was a matter or pride to complete any action on horseback.

*Well into the age of gunpowder and percussion arms, the favorite weapon of the mounted Vaquero was the knife and short sword. It was felt that shooting someone accross the distance of a barroom did not take as much courage as a bladed conflict at very short range ... I'm just sayin'

I am including another of James Walkers idyllic paintings below ... on the rider on the right, notice the saber mounted in its saddle sheath much the way that Wichesters would be carried. On the left rider, notice the Belduque handle rising out of his left Bota ....

[WaddWatsonEllis]

In order to get the painting small enough to add, it lost the detail of the sword and Belduqe

Here is the sight where you can see the detail I could not get above ....

http://www.1st-art-gallery.com/James-Walker/California-Vaqueros.html

[Angel_Eyes]

See? It doesn't take much to get an education around here!!

Wait till Sunday lunch, when I ask the missus to pass me the Belduque!!

Better learn to duck!

AE

[WaddWatsonEllis]

 

[Josh Dabney]

Howdy Pards,

Not a bunch of excitement last night but some progress was made, LOL  

In this first pic you can see where I've sanded the etch off the blade in the spanish notch area and drawn in where I want to remove steel with a fine point sharpie.



Here we have the notch as far as I wanna go with power tools.  I used my Dremel and the tinist carbide burr available to carve out the notch.  After carving I did some tuning up of the mouth of the notch with various files.



From here it's on to fine tuning the insides of the notch with sand paper



In this pic you can see that I've begun hand sanding the blade.  This pic highlights the transition between the flats of the blade and the convexed edge.   At this point I decided I wasn't satisfied with the transition so I took it back to the grinder and a 400 grit slack belt to blend the flat and covex parts of the blade.  Ultimatly I want the blade to look like it's a single flat grind even though it has a convexed edge.



Now back to the hand sanding.  Prior to heat treating the blade I don't really need a perfect finish on the blade.  However,  the better the finish prior to HT the easier (read faster) it will be to get a good finish on the hardened steel.  It's MUCH easier to remove and refine scratches on a soft blade as opposed to one thats been hardened.  So my goal at this point is to be 100% certain I've removed ALL traces of the verticle scratches from the belt and disk sander.



Basically all steps in the knifemaking process are subject to the makers preference and there are many many different ways to accomplish each task.  Most, if not nearly all makers will leave their blades on the thick side proir to heat treating and go right back to the grinder after HT.  I've been getting such satisfactory results with using anti-scale compound while HT-ing that I've been working towards a more refined finish proir to HT in the hopes that my blade will be clean enough after HT that I can hand finish from that point.   There remains the possibilty though that even a pinhole in my anti-scale will cause me to have to go back to the grinder after HT.

Here's a close-up of the 320 grit finish I'm looking for at this stage




I still have quite a ways to go before HT-ing this blade but steady progress will get us ther before ya know it.

Thanks fer followin along Pards !   -Josh

[WaddWatsonEllis]

Josh,

Every time I watch your steps, I think of what the knife would look like were I making it, using my woodworking tools and my untrained (read presbyopic) eyes....

I'm convinced that at best it would look like a trade knife at a county swap meet and not the work of art you are preparing .... and we are no where near the sheath yet!

 

[Gun Butcher]

  Josh, you have answered so many question as you have gone thru this process that I can't think of any right now. You would make one heck of a teacher and I appreciate your effort in doing this for all of us.

[Josh Dabney]

GB,

Thanks fer the compliment Pard.

This one has been comming over the horizon fer awhile now and WWE and I talked about a more detailed WIP thread for this build. 

It's actually kinda fun, although time consuming, and I wouldn't wanna do it for every knife but WWE and I thought that a thread intended to be informative as to the construction of a handmade knife would be of interest to the knife enthusiasts we've got here. 

I'm sorta approaching things from more of an "informational" WIP as opposed to a "how to" type WIP.   An enitre book could be written on each individual aspect of the process such as a "how to" on grinding bevels alone .

I will happily answer ANY questions that pop up to the best of my ability though, and do also welcome input from others in alterantive methods and techniques  (Dave/John/Chuck/Ned/Rebsr/)   I KNOW some folks around here could teach me a thing or two along the way here    So please feel free to chime in here guys !

I'm sure glad folks seem to be enjoyin this WIP,   Josh

[kflach]

I"m not an knife maker although I love knives. When WWE told me about this thread I set it up so I could keep track. I'm thotoughly enjoying from it as well.

Thanks for taking that extra time. Who knows, maybe one day I'll become a knifemaker, too.

[Josh Dabney]

Mornin Pards,

Work time got shortened a bit last night on account of a phone call from an ole' Pard o' mine from Ohio  
Did still manage to make a bit of progress in working towards HT-ing this here Belduque  

I started off with a bit of final fine tuning to the hand finish and continued on to layout the area on the blade that'll be the clip.



Now,  Due to the face that I did NOT layout and scribe a centerline for the edge of the clip prior to grinding the bevels of the blade I now don't have the option of setting the calipers to center and scribing due the fact that the top edge of the spine is tapered over the lenght of the clip.

To overcome the taper and get a true centerline I coated the spine with layout fluid and scribed a short centerline on both ends of the clip.  Then I clamped her up in the bench vise (padded with leather of course!) and used a straight edge and carbide scribe to mark the centerline.



Now we can move on to actually grinding in the clip.  With a fase clip (swedge) I'll grind it in after HT to try and keep warp to a minimum during the HT process.  Although this steel is mostly made of 5160 which is a deep hardening steel so it shouldn't be a problem but I'm gonna grind some of the bulk out of the clip area just to ensure that this area gets fully hardened during the quench. For the clip to hold an edge it MUST be fully hardened.

The thinner the steel the faster it'll cool during the quench !  The faster it cools the higher the likeyhood of getting a full martensite conversion with the quench (or in laymans terms... Hardened).  This is an overly simplified statement as there are MANY factors that come into play but without getting too involved in technical metallurgical speak this gives you an idea of why I'm setting the blade up for HT the way that I am  



This next shot just shows how I used my trusty scribe to mark the inside face of the bolsters with the side of blade it goes on and a directional arrow pointing towards the tip of the blade to ensure proper re-allignment on future operations, which is now.



Now using my pins to allign the bolsters I superglued them back on to keep them alligned while shaping to the tang of the knife.  Here you can see that I'm using a 1" wide belt to grind the bolster top and bottom flush with the tang. This is a 220 grit belt that will remove material slow and easy.  At this point creating a big gouge in the tang would be a call to whack may head off the corner of the workbench,  LOL, so SLOW & EASY is the order of the day here !  The further along you get with a knife the more disasterous to the final outcome a mistake will be.



In the last shot you can see the flat platen on the grinder that supports the belt.  The platen is covered in ceamic glass to reduce friction with the belt and get a true flat.  The glass is also MUCH more resistant to wear than a typical mild steel platen face which will quickly wear enough that it becomes impossible to get a true flat.  The platen is great but to profile the bottom of the bolsters it just won't allow us to get into that area so here you'll see that I took it off and profiled the bottom with the slack belt.



Now we've got our bolsters flush with the tang on top and bottom we need to layout the groove that'll be filed around the center of the bolsters.  We're only concerned with the top and bottom at this point to get the grooves into the tang of the blade before HT-ing.   These bolsters are made from 3/4" wide German Silver barstock wich I verified with my calipers by measuring them at .7495 .  Moving on I again coated the top and bottom with layout fluid and set my caliper to .375 to scribe the centerline off the face of the bolsters.



Here's a little trick I'll use often when doing filework.  To begin I'll use a triangle shaped file to get a precision cut right where I want it.  The pupose of this is to make a small groove that will guide the round file and avoid accidentally cutting off to one side or the other when begining the cut with the round file. In this pic you can see a scribed line to the left of the file cut.  This is here because I initially set my caliper to .325 by ACCIDENT.  A quick eyeball of the scribed line told me that it was NOT in the center of the bolster (which you can see in the previous pic).  Precision tools are GREAT.  But do NOT discount the power of the eyeball !!!!!   It's kinda like ole' Ronnie Reagan used to say... "trust but verify"



Here's what we're lookin fer with the filework proior to HT and shaping the bolsters.



Again I gave a quick etch to reveal the damascus pattern so now we can really begin to get feel for how the Belduque is gonna look when finished





This brings us to the end of another day Pards.  

Thanks alot fer followin along with Belduque       Josh

[Ned Buckshot]

Thanks Josh, I'm learning something at every step!

I do appreciate it.

And the Belduque is truning out beautifully!

Ned

[Josh Dabney]

Ned,

My Pleasure Pard !

Remember,  everything you see here was taught to me by someone else so I'm just sharing some of the knowledge others have shared with me. 

The knifemaking community is a great place to be with tons of commraderie and free exchange of info,  Kinda reminds me of the CAS City.

-Josh

[GunClick Rick]

Nothing like aman that has the confidence to teach his skills to others.I always did the same when i was operating heavy equipment.The way i learne i was tossed on a dozer and told go get em,my boss thought it was funny,i didn't,my grandfather thank god taught me that,go slow pay attention and never stop thinkin,cuase you can really get bit bad,I never had a problem teaching a new person,alot more safe that way..Thanks Josh this is really cool..Wished i had all of granpas tool now,i'd give it a go..Gonna be bueatiful like Ned said~~~

Does the little cut out serve a purpose,or just ornamental?

[Josh Dabney]

GCR,

There's always the risk of defeat, LOL.  But I am getting comfortable enough with my skills and knowledge to share a bit of it with y'all.

Your story reminds me of when my Dad taught me to drive a standard shift.  He gave me the keys and said " If you stall out give it more gas.  If you chirp the tires give it less gas and stay away from hills till you get the hang of it"

I'm sure that your Grandpa had a fine set of tools but you do know that a fine performing knife can be made with VERY modest tools       If you ever wanna give it a go I'd be happy to make some recommendations as to methods and material choices.

Now I'm fixin to get busy posting my todays update today instead of in the mornin 

-Josh

[Josh Dabney]

Well Pards the time has come.  The exciting and dramatic time of heat treating the Belduque !

The dangers involved with red hot steel, fire and smoke just hold an allure that gets in the blood.  And there's no known cure for the addiction !  

In this first pic we see the components we're gonna use in preparing the blade to go into the oven.  We're fixin to apply anti-scale compound to the entire blade.  The purpose of this is to put a thin coat of heat resistant material over the surface of the blade to protect it from carbon robbing oxygen and protection from decarb ( decarburation, which is when the carbon atoms on the surface of the steel attatch themselves to oxygen and actually leave the steel  creating scale and a layer of soft low-carbon steel on the surface)

In the pic you'll see a can of acetone used to clean the blade of any oils or contaminates that will prevent the anti-scale from sticking to the blade and also the white can that is the actual anti-scale compound.    Also included is a paint brush and coffee can lid for application purposes.



In this pic we have the lid, brush, a blob of anti-scale, and some hot tap water that we'll mix up to form a dillited version of anti-scale that allows us to get a very thin coat.



Now we heat up the blade with the heat gun to facilitate very quick drying when applying our wash coat and here's a shot of the blade coated



Now it's getting GOOD !  Here we are putting the Belduque into the HT-ing oven



We're cooking with oil now !    The flare up is a result of the hot steel of the tang being in contact with the surface of the oil. It really looks a bit more risky than it actually is and the angle of the camera makes it look like the quench tank is closer to the oven than it actually is.  I would recommend not to try this at home Boys and Girls because this stunt was performed under controlled conditions by trained professionals    (I always wanted to say that)



To ensure that we've done a proper job of hadening the blade we check it with a file.  Because the "as quenched" hardness of the blade is harder then than the file we attempt to cut into the edge with our file.  If the file bites into the steel whe have NOT fully hardened our blade.  As it happens the Belduque passed the file test all along the edge of the blade and clip  

When HT-ing blades that are ground thin you MUST be prepared to deal with a little warp.  The Belduque had a VERY slight bow to the left out of the quench.  There is a very small window of time when the blade is "hardened" but still very pliable that it can be straightened  easily.  Many folks will straighten the blade at this point with nothing more than gloved hands but I prefer the precision afforded by this simple 3-point set-up on my bench vise.  



Here she is straight out of the quench and straight as an arrow



Now I want to make this important point for anyone who may attempt to use their kitchen oven to temper a blade or draw back a file to make a knife out of.   DO NOT TRUST THE SETTING OF YOUR KITCHEN OVEN !  You'll see here that I've got the oven set at 365 degrees but was getting an actual temperature measured with an oven thermometer at a touch over 400 degrees.  I keep a very watchful eye on that thermometer and adjusted the setting down 5 degrees to get an even 400 degree 2 hour temper followed by an air cool to room temp then back into the oven for a second 2 hour temper.




Tomorrow we're gonna sharpen her up and see how we did with our HT.   Judging by the light straw color out of the temper I have a feeling this blade is gonna pass the brass rod and chopping tests with flying colors.

[Josh Dabney]

GCR,

Sorry Pard, I plum forgot to mention that the filed in groove around the bolster does offer a much improved grip over a plain smooth polished bolster.

Probably not something thats thought about these days is that a knife like this would've been a fella's primary cutting tool and weapon and would've been require to see duty reguardless of rain, sweat, or blood so any improvement in grip over a smooth polished bolster would be a welcomed addition.

-Josh