Frontier damascus bowie

This is the bowie Bruce evans helped me forge at his symposium. It has a couple of pieces of gunbarl, a piece of horseshoe, a large ball bearing, a 1/2" wrench, half of a claw hammer head, some grade 60 rebar, to name a few of the components.

I am planing on replaceing the handle, 1/8" pins are a little big when peined and got cockeyed on one hole.

She looks great and has that Frontuer look writen all over it..
You finished it up very nicely..
Bruce

William, good looking knife, I really like seeing the rebar in your knife. Lucky to have someone like Bruce helping you out. Ray

'turned out great Ray! Wow! Bruce, I'd sure love to see a few snapshots of the welding of a similar billet. I can imagine how one would approach getting all these bits and pieces "stuck." Your tutorials are always appreciated.

I might be able to explain it real quick...First round up a little pile of scrap pieces like warped blades or broke blades and then anything that will harden when quenched.I have buckets of old wrenches sockets cutting bits for a machie shop,old files tht are broken nails screws nuts bolts pieces of rebar broken hammer heads drill bits,you get the idea...
Now the easiest way to start is to take a flat spring or flatten down a piece of 60 grade rebar or round spring material,start heating the end of the bar up and then take it out of the fire and set a piece of something on it warm it up some then bring it out and flux it then heat to welding bring it out and weld it down,now you can either take a smaller piece than the last one and set it on top and weld it the same way,DON"T put a piece bigger than the last one on top or you will end up with a bad weld,if you are not sure about making a stack at first just take and squish each piece into the last as you go keeping the bar flat this way you can just add whatever size you want next.The first bar is going to start getting thin so you will just fold it back onto itself and weld it down you can weld to both sides of the handle if you want,Now every once in awhile you will want to cut the billet and fold it then add something else to it until you get as big a billet as you want to make or can handle..Now just stretch it out and cut and fold as many times as you want.I like to stretch a bar of this out to about 1/8 inch thick and as long as possiable then cut it into as many pieces that are the same size as I can like 5-6 or what ever I try to keep them from 4-6 inches long,then stack them up and weld the stack with a new flat piece in the middle as a handle unless you can just set the billet in the fire and grab with tongs,stretch it again and do the same thing then stretch and fold once to keep even hits on each side (not that it mnatters with type of billet the sides never look the same) and make a blade or Blades from it.The more L6 in the mix the shinier the blade will be.This can be a fun way to get back at those Blades thathave messed up and you pitched late at night when theyu wouldn't cooperate or that has warped to bad or cracked in the heat treat,You tell it that it will make a Blade one way or the other.Keep the Damascus ends and any scrap pieces as seed for the next billet,You can get a real high layer count by using allot of Damascus scrap pieces in the billet,and it will come out with wide bold patterns that when you get close and look have tiny layers in between them..
Just have fun and clean up around teh shop...

Hey William,Remember that you found a good use for a china made wrench with this Blade: Remember we put a 1/2 inch wrench in the mix also..
Bruce

to true, finally found a good use for all thouse China tools.

Not to mention I use a lot of 52100 and could never figure out what to do with all the balls that come out of the bearing, now I know! Was thinking of useing them for slingshot ammo!

One thing though, stay away from high speed steel, It just crumbles and falls off the billit, I haven't given up though, there must be a way to use up all thouse broken drill bits.

I like this style of damascus a lot, feels more natural, and you can come up with some wild paterns

Foxcreak, while not a tutorial, there are some photo's of Bruce's symposium on the MKA website, with a couple of shots of a billit in progress.

Well, I couldn't get the link posted, here's one of the photo's I was talking about...

Bruce and William,great looking knife.This is the kind of stuff that makes me want to learn forging.The best part has to be the fun doing it and then seeing the end result.Great job again,Dave.

Thanks guys! Bruce, your can do attitude is positively inspiring. For some reason this sort of thing appeals to me mightily. I love the idea of recycling old blades.