Gary Mulkey

Aldo, Were it me, I wouldn't bother. 15N20 will easily weld to itself so if someone needs thicker layers of it for their Damascus they can simply double or triple up on the 15N20 pieces of what they have available in the initial stack.

Like Alan, I've not tried working with these two steels but I see one "red flag" in that this mix of stainless steels will give you a low carbon or hypoeutectoid Damascus after carbon migration which isn't what you want for a cutting tool.

Sorry that I'm so slow in responding but yes, I've used the re-purposed drill to make a Merovingian Damascus billet:

Wes, No matter what size you make them, you will need to continuously turn the billet 90 degrees as you squeeze it to avoid distortion. You will get less distortion by doing many small squeezes rather than less deep squeezes. I have two sizes of squaring dies. One 1 1/2" & one 1" side-by-side on the same die.

Aaron, The H/T including the quench is the heart & soul of any blade and not something that is wise to guess on. First off, you need to know what type of steel that you're H/T'ing as each one needs to be H/T'ed differently. Do some research on your various knife steels. Each will require different temperatures and cooling rates to get a proper blade. Most of your 10xx series steels will harden with the various cooking oils if they are pre-heated to around 120 degrees. However, the more that a steel is alloyed, the more difficult it is to H/T correctly. Spend some time studying the more popular blade steels. There are many threads online that will explain them. If you are on a budget, then cut corners on the handle and not on the blade of the knife. You'll be glad that you did.

Thanks, Kevin. Looks like I'll probably be making this handle again. (smile)

Thanks, Alan. I guess that it must have been a good call as I had the knife with the old handle for almost two years and no takers. With the new handle it sold in 24 hours.

Thanks, everyone. I appreciate the kind words.

Geoff, Before I could make a choice, I would want to know what you want the knife to be. If you are wanting a traditional Confederate type d-guard then I would use the largest one as most Confederate Bowies were very large. If you are wanting to make a modern type d-guard Bowie then it's completely subjective and I would recommend using the one that feels right to you. Good luck and keep us updated with your progress. Gary

Blade: "Campo de Cielo Meteorite" w/ W2, 1084 & 15N20 steels Handle: African Blackwood Inlays: Fine Silver Wire Fittings: 416 Stainless

Salem, There aren't many doing jellyrolls anymore. Nice job. I like it.

Thanks, gentlemen. I hope that this little WIP helps a bit. Gary

Since I recently decided to flute the handle of my most recent dagger and I thought that some might enjoy the process. As I am self taught in this so my technique may vary from others but hopefully this will give you an idea of how I go about it. A traditional dagger hilt is to carve twisted flutes into it along with some twisted silver wire inlayed to separate the flutes. In this hilt, I chose to give it eight flutes each having a 360 degree twist. [The number of flutes and the amount of twist is a matter of taste. I have used as low as four flutes each having a 180 degree twist up to eight flutes each with a full 360 degree twist as with this one.] My first move is to cut equidistant slots in each end of the handle; the number matching the amount of flutes to be given to the handle. These are just deep enough to match the diameter of the twisted wire inlay. Then a grid is drawn out on the handle with pencil. First connect the slots on each end of the handle with straight lines. Next draw equally spaced lines around the handle perpendicular to the others. The number will determine the amount of twist to the flutes. Since I wanted 360 degree flutes with this one, I drew eight grid lines (matching the number of flutes). I then drew diagonal lines going corner-to-corner on each square of the grid with pencil and cut a kerf on each line with a fine toothed hacksaw blade. [The kerf should be as deep as the diameter of the inlayed wire.] These can be cleaned up with checkering or riffler files. Once you have the inlay kerfs cut, carve (or file) half round grooves between the kerfs with a tapered rattail file. (It's important to use a tapered file as the grooves will need to be different widths (unless your handle is perfectly cylindrical). The next step is to twist the silver wire. This is done easily with any hand held drill and a vice. Once twisted, super glue strands of the wire into each inlay slot while wrapping both ends around the end of the handle and into the tang cavity of the handle. I hope that this helps show how the fluting can be done. I'm sure that there are other methods to accomplish the same outcome but this one works for me.

I've still another half day of "spit & polish" on this one but all of the components are complete:

To be more correct than the thread title, I'm re-working an old dagger that I wasn't 100% satisfied with. For this one I completed disassembled the knife and threw away the old handle. After re-finishing & etching the blade, I starting building a new hilt. Since the original blade is a mosaic made with some "Campo de Cielo" meteorite I wanted to keep it intact due to the uniqueness of it. The new hilt is of blackwood which I plan on giving eight 360 degree twisted flutes along with twisted wire inlays in between. The pommel & nut are of 416. I'll try to post some pics once I have the handle carved & inlayed.