Gary Mulkey

Dave, I probably go about this differently than most. I made some dies for my press with a 2" diameter (one concave & one convex) to bend the pommel cap. The wood handle is ground freehand to match on my 2x72.

Thanks but this isn't a difficult nor lengthy process. It takes less than 5 minutes.

Clifford, That's done by hand with a checkering file.

Someone has mislead you about wootz. Originally it was made in small sealed crucibles with approx. 24 of them in the furnace at a time. Each of them produced a semi-spherical billet of approx. 2.4/2.5 kilos or about 5 lbs. The pattern occurred during the cool down time after smelting with the furnace remaining closed so "sloshing" would have been impossible. There is a lot of material online to explain the process.

Thank you, Charles. And yes that's a reflection. I'll try to get a better photo taken today.

Completed. I'll try to get some better pics tomorrow when the natural light permits. This African Blackwood has a lot of brown layers which I love but unfortunately it probably will darken with age. I'm not sure if you can see it or not but these two are going to brothers so I reversed the angled coin edging on the handle spacers to add a little extra difference between the two knives. I wonder if they will notice. I'll try to get some better quality photos tomorrow when the natural light permits.

I have to apologize. I gave you the wrong information. (It's late and I'm brain dead tonight.) You want C655 Silicon bronze. It machines well is usually available in round bar. It will darken with age. If you need immediate darkening try using liver of sulfur on it.

If it were me I would use C932 or what's called aluminum bronze. You can get it from Online Metals. It's available is all shapes where most other bronzes are limited. Be careful hot forging it though as it has some zinc content. Don't let the name fool you. Here's it's chemistry: Copper (Cu) 81.0 - 85.0% Tin (Sn) 6.3 - 7.5% Lead 6.0 - 8.0% Zinc 2.0 - 4.0%

With the weather at 94 degrees and climbing, I think that I'll let it cool off some before working on #2.

I got the handle work completed for my pair of Bowies today. I'll try to get started on the hand sanding & etching of the blades tomorrow.

Thanks, Vern.

I got handle #1 roughed out and dry fitted today:

Yes they are. I routed the handles 1/4" wide and am inlaying 1/4" nickel silver (turned edgewise). This way all that I have to do is to round the ends and grind the length to fit. It gives me more thickness in the escutcheons so if I want to contour the handles I can without grinding through the escutcheons.

I managed to get a little handle work done today on these two. This may give you an idea of where I'm going with them: I'm planning a three piece handle spacer in front of the blackwood with some filework on the middle piece.)