Ok Pards, here we go with the next steps in this dance with Belduque
This first pic shows how I worked down the profile of the handle to match the shape of the bolsters. It's probably a good time to mention this point. Because this knife is damascus and a full tang evrything must fit precisely together like a puzzle before anything is actually assembled. The bolsters and scales must be gound smooth to the profile of the knife then everything taken apart to do the final etch on the steel. Then everything has to be re-assembled permanently in exactly the same position. This is much more difficult than epoxying everything together then grinding to the final shape.
I didn't get a bunch of pictures of the finish grinding on the blade. This one shows how I've got the bevels gound up to full height and how much work still needs to be done on the plunge area.
During the process of grinding I again gave the blade a quick etch so now we're getting a close idea of how the steel is going to look finished
No matter how flat you think you've got your grind on the grinder a trip to the disc grinder will reveal the areas that need attension and some time spent with the disc will give a true flat on the blade. This pic shows clearly how much of the edge is convexed
I've really been working on improving my machine finish to save time hand sanding which can at times be quite extensive. This shot gives a good idea of the finish quality before hand finishing.
I'm at the point now that the rest of the work on the blade will be done by hand so I'm moving on to working on the scales before putting the final finish on the blade. Here is my block of curly maple that will be split into scales for the Belduque. You can see I cut it to size leaving a bit extra around the perimeter, traced the handle on the wood and drilled 2 allignment holes outside the handle. The allignment pins will ensure the scales stay bookmatched.
Here you can see that I've marked the side of the scales that will go against the tang with an X and labeled one side 1 and the other 2. Once the scales are split in two it's EXTREMELY easy to get them spun around so this will keep us straight.
And finally we rip the block down the middle on the bandsaw to get our scales.