Bowie for a buddie

[Mike Ward]

After a stupid amount of time and a restart, this is done. Started with a blade of 1084 that worked just fine up until the point where I decided to do the heat treat again because I wasn't satisfied with the first one. Bad idea because it was too thin by that point and the edge looked like it was Lake Michigan on a windy day.

Restarted with some 80cvr2 cause some people *cough cough Vern cough cough* seem to love it for it's forgiveness and ease. He's right about that, I like it.

Anyway, the guard is 1084/15n20 with 12 layers twisted. The handle goes tiger striped maple, wenge and bubinga with a length of 4.5". It is finished with several coats of Tung oil and I will be putting wax on there also. The blade is 8 3/16" long by 1 3/8" wide and 1/8" thick.

Thank you everyone for your suggestions. My buddy loves it so I think it's a job well done.

[Wes Detrick]

That finished up nicely Mike!  Nice clean lines, nice choice of materials.  Good work

[Vern Wimmer]

I like it and I've heard that odd whatchamacallit steel takes a good finish and gets purty sharp. Should be a great knife. I'm glad you decided to go thin with it. I think people are mistaken to think they have to be as thick as the bumper on a '58 Caddy. Some of them there funny named steels we have today are Gawdalmitey tough.

[Mike Ward]

Thanks, I appreciate it. Only weird thing I found was that I have a near perfectly vertical "hamon" line about a quarter inch away from the plunge line. You can kinda see it in the first two pictures, but I tell ya the difference in sanding the hardened and soft is a real pain in the thumbs. Probably caused by too short of a fire and tube when heat treating.

[Brian Dougherty]

That turned out nice MIke.  I"ve been cheering for you from the shadows on this build.

You can get auto-hamons/hardening lines like that near the ricasso/tang area because you generally are trying to avoid getting the tang hot enough to harden it.  That means that somewhere between the tang and the edge will be a point at which the steel transitions from hard to soft.  You just need to manage the heat so that the transition isn't near the edge

Edited June 28, 2018 by Brian Dougherty

[Mike Ward]

Just sharpened and tested it and wow! I'm in love with it, chopped through a pine bough about 1.5" with ease, stripped the branches and bark, and still shaved my arm clean. I'm happy.