Coffin Frame Dagger Build

[Joël Mercier]

I've had trouble sourcing quality Portaband saw blades in my area and I found 3packs of MK Morse bi-metal on Amazon. I am still using the first blade 3 years later. Excellent stuff...

 

BTW Joshua, your thread is really interesting, so I've been following and thought I should mention the MK Morse 

Edited August 25, 2021 by Joël Mercier

[Joshua States]

BTW- To anyone who is hesitant to "Hijack" the thread, don't hesitate to ask questions, offer alternatives, or side subjects. That only makes the thread better. I'm mostly interested in the sharing of knowlledge and that is a two-way street. So bring it on!

[Joshua States]

A little side bar project spawned from this bar. I took all those little triangles and cleaned them up. Then I arranged them in a canoe with some 1095 powder.

 

 

 

After welding the canoe shut....

 

 

I welded it in the press. I hot cut off the end and split the seam.

 

Forged the bar out to about 1" x 5/8" x 8" long.

 

 

Then a little surface grinding

 

 

And a light etch

 

 

This will make something someday.....

Edited August 28, 2021 by Joshua States

[Joshua States]

Well, after Liz's birthday lunch and some tile shopping, I got some forge time in. The bar got flattened out and I set myself to the profile shaping.

Template on the anvil

 

Forge the tip out and start the ricasso/tang area.

 

 

Start spreading to get the width I need, and establish the bevels

 

 

Draw the tang out fully and match against the template

 

 

This one will take a lot of grinding. It will not be fully forged to shape. The grinds have to be deep enough to to relveal 5 bars on the face of the blade. If I forge the bevels too thin, that will get lost.

[Joshua States]

After a little more forging and tweaking, I was satisfied with the shape and straightness. So I clamp my template to the form, and scribe the profile.

 

 

After grinding the profile, I can strike the edge center lines. I also stike a center line down each face.

 

 

Now comes the make or break it test. Grinding into this bar will reveal any flaws or voids in the welds.

 

 

 

Nothing but clean steel is a good sign.

[Gary LT]

Oh that’s nice…..! Watching Joshua.

Gary LT

[Alan Longmire]

Somehow I missed this latest update.  Looking great!

[Austin_Lyles]

I missed it too. It's looking mighty fine, Josh! Keep it up. 

[KenH]

I'm waiting for more - I LOVE daggers.  They are MUCH harder to grind and get right than they look to the casual viewer.  I admire anybody who can comfortably grind a dagger properly.

 

Good job, on both the grind and the billet.  Looking forward to the etch.

[Joshua States]

Minor update. I finally had some shop time and had a bunch of stuff to get sanding on, and this was one of them. I got the bevels and flats to 220 nad set my plunges and shoulders. I also had to straighten out the tang.  This is do while setting the guard shoulders using the file jig tool.

Set the carbide faces toward the tang to make the shoulders and put the mirror on the blade side. Get the blade reflection nice and straight and you will have the shoulders square to the blade centerline.

 

 

Then you can grind & adjust the tang to also sit centered.

 

 

Then I took this to 400 grit in preparation to etch.

 

 

I I know that's a big tease, not doing the etch and showing it, but I had other knives to sand and didn't want to blow the etch.

 

News flash: I was posting the progress pics on FB so the customer could watch me make it. I posted the FB update right before I started to reduce the photos for this post. While I was writing this post, a mutual FB friend let me know that the customer passed away last week. So, this dagger may just take another path. We will see. 

 

[Joshua States]

I etched it anyway.

 

 

[Gary LT]

That’s a really neat pattern @Joshua States, really nice.

Much different than other patterns out there. (At least those I’ve seen)

GaryLT

 

[Gerhard Gerber]

That is quite stunning Josh, sorry to hear about it's future owner.......

[Charles dP]

Sorry to hear Josh. If it were me I’d want to be buried with that dagger. Folks in Valhalla would be impressed.

[Joshua States]

Well, I am going to sideline this for a while. I have other stuff to work on. In the meantime, I'm open to suggestions on designs for hilting this blade.

[Brian Dougherty]

It is stunning Joshua.  I'm sorry to hear about the patron. 

[Francis Gastellu]

That is a beautiful pattern.

[Charles dP]

On 10/28/2021 at 2:48 AM, Joshua States said:

In the meantime, I'm open to suggestions on designs for hilting this blade.

This one from Kevin Cashen I’ve always liked.

maybe it can give you some inspiration.

[Joshua States]

Thanks Charles. Two other people told me to make a ring hilt. It has always been on my to-do list. I have been playing with the idea for a few years of making a ring hilt from  twist Damascus and peeling the ring out so the stars show on the outside of the ring and on one side of each of the guard branches.

[Charles dP]

Sounds awesome Josh. Go for it.

[Joshua States]

Last night I set about cutting a fuller into the dagger.

 

[Dan Hertzson]

You are putting in fullers in a hardened blade freehand with a rotary tool?

[Joshua States]

3 hours ago, Dan Hertzson said:

You are putting in fullers in a hardened blade freehand with a rotary tool?

Pretty much yeah. It's not exactly "freehand" though.

There is a bent piece of 1x1/8" strap held to the handpiece with two hose clamps. The blade is centered on, & held to a 2x3/8" flat strap with the vice at the point and the tang with a bar clamp. The two pieces of steel strap allow for centering the grinding wheel and a guide.

 

 

 I got the idea from @Kevin Colwell during a FB series he did on a Chinese sword restoration. One of the things he did was to reestablish the fullers down the spine. He was using scrapers mostly. Now the spine of that sword is almost assuredly much softer than the core of this dagger, but I reached out to Kevin and asked him about the idea. He proposed using the grinding wheel and the rotary tool. He also told me to use a bent bar as a guide along the edge to keep it straight and centered. 

The problem was dealing with the taper of the dagger's edges. It took another conversation about the idea with @JJ Simon who suggested the guide bar under the dagger blade. "scribe a center line on a flat bar" he said, "and clamp the point on the center line and the center of the tang end on the center line." Grinding from both sides, you can center the fuller on the blade.

 

It pays to make friends! Now I just have to not screw it up.

Edited December 16, 2021 by Joshua States

[Joshua States]

So I'm not making the copy of that dagger and I needed a new desgn. Tonight I set pencil to paper. First I make the profile of the blade and put a center line down the middle. I'm using Peter Johnson's proportion method for daggers these days, so the only thing the ruler is good for, is drawing straight lines. All measurements are based off of the length and width of the blade.

Somewhere in the middle of all that scribbling, is a handle, guard and pommel.....

 

 

After erasing all the cicrles and lines, adding a little here and trimming a little there......

 

 

The guard and pommel are twist Damascus. The spacer is supposed to be a Hancock 5-piece package with two twist Damascus and three shiny thin ones. (it could be stainless, it could be fine silver). This will be a ring guard and I may just flute the handle and do some twisted silver wire inlay. I'll see how adventurous I feel.

 

[Dan Hertzson]

20 hours ago, Joshua States said:

It's not exactly "freehand" though

Thanks for the detailed explanation.  I figured it had to be something like that.  

Like the new design.  Peter's guidelines seem to work well for part lengths, but the body of the handle does seem to dominate a little aesthetically.  Perhaps you could consider vertical flutes (with crevices lines in twisted silver wire to match your theme) or some faceting?