Damascus Integral Bird and Trout WIP

[Mike Turner]

Hi all here is a thread I started on BF and having so much fun thought you guys would like to see it to.

Hi all, I was contacted sometime back by a fellow forum member ( Jim Johnson ) to build him a custom knife. We talked quite a bit he was intially wanting maybe a hunter and asked to see some pics, I directed him to one I just completed to show the damascus pattern to see if he liked something like this,

Here is the knife I showed Jim,



Well Jim really liked this knife so with some more talking we decided to build a similar knife.

So let the build begin.

[Mike Turner]

OK build time, first up I forged out the "W" Pattern billet for another knife but had plenty for this knife. I had showed this billet earlier but here is the pic anyway,

Here we started with this really compressed "W" pattern,



Here we have a few forging pics,



Cooking the blade in one of Dave Lisch's forges ,



Here you will notice the rod is still attached from when I forged the block out,

[Mike Turner]

Checking to see how the forging is going against a sketch I did on my anvil,




Rod has been removed and I am working on the profile,




Here I wanted to take a peek at what we had so far I also used my CNC Mill to set the front and back of the bolsters so they are even,

[Mike Turner]

Now I start shaping the bolsters using files,




Here is where we are now. I have surface ground the tang located the pin holes and have shaped the front of the bolsters. Also had the wife include the beautiful stag I got from Alpha Knife Supply for this build,



Hopefully I will get this heat treated before I have to head of to California in a few days.

[Mike Turner]

Thanks Mark

Eduardo your skill is remarkable, I hope that one day I maybe as skilled as you are my friend.

Well we made it back from L.A. yesterday. So today I went over to my friend Gene Martin's house and used his heat treat oven to heat treat this knife. I tried something new for me I used a anti scale compound from Brownells and was quite impressed with it. So lets see some pics,

Here the knife has been heated to 500?F and already has the first coat of the anti scale compound.



Putting on the second coat,



My friend Gene heating the oil up, just ain't no fun with out a little fire for the camera,



Coming out of the furnace after a 10 minute soak at 1500?F (steel is O1 and 8670M in case I forgot to mention it),



Into the oil we go,

[Mike Turner]

After this I am really liking this anti scale compound, wish I found this stuff a long time ago,




More to come this week.

[Bear_Blade]

Looks awsome Mike, thanks for takeing us along!

[Mike Turner]

Thanks Pierre,


Well today I managed to get some work done on this.


I started off squaring up the end of the scales that will go against the bolster,



I have also been needing to make this jig which will allow me to clamp one scale and clamp the tang to the jig so when I drill my hole through the scales it will be true and square,



Using the new jig,



One hole done 3 to go,

[Mike Turner]

Got the holes drilled for the pins and traced the tang and used the bandsaw to cut off the excess,

[Mike Turner]

Well now it is grinder time, I will take off most of the excess that is left and get it very close and finish the scale shaping with files and sand paper,



Looking pretty good now what do you think?





Thanks for looking and stay tuned more to come.

[Don Robinson]

Great stuff, Mike. Great photos and WIP.

say hello to Gene for me.

That's going to be a great looking little knife. Wish I had some of that good stag.

[Mike Turner]

Hi Don,

Thank you my friend hope you are doing well. I wish I could afford to use more of that stag, I got this stag from Alpha Knife Supply. They hand picked it for me from stock they had not listed for sale yet, great folks to deal with.

I should be seeing Gene today and will tell him you said Hello.

[Mike Turner]

Well got some time to work on this today. I finished up on getting the scales shaped with files and sandpaper, so here are the action shots.






Next we will be cleaning up the bolsters and the blade beyond where the plunge cuts will be to 2000 grit all by hand.

[Major]

Greetings Mike,

Thanks for the WIP and all the photos, they're excellent.

The first knife that this one is based on is awesome, everything just goes so well together. what is the handle material, that pattern is brilliant.

Thanks again

Regards, Se

[Mike Turner]

Thanks Sean, the handle material is Sambar Stag.