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Sheffield Bowie Rob Charleton kindly sent us one of his DAMASCUS USA Sheffield Bowie blanks to play with. This will be the first high end knife I have worked on for over three years so I'm looking forward to it. The boldness of the Damascus on this particular blade immediately catches the eye. Even from half way across a room the pattern is clearly visible. |
 #25-M-Sheffield Bowie |
Forged To Shape ? Its easy to tell that its forged to shape as the pattern on the main grinds has less of a tendency to resolve into straight lines like a stock removal blade would. |
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Blade Grinds. The blank is very symetrically forged and finished which is handy as there is nothing worse than having to spend half your build time adjusting the blade. No such worries here. |
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Shoulders Shoulders are clean and square. They are, in fact, too square and would benefit from a small radius so maybe just a little adjustment is called for after all. :-) |
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Fittings. 11/10/02 I chose a piece of 1/4 inch titanium for the guard while the ferrule is made from 16 guage stainless tube squashed into an oval crossection and capped by TIG welding to 1/8 inch sheet. Holes were drilled on a drill press and the web between the holes filed out into a slot to take the tang. |
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21/10/02 Here we see the fittings nearer completion. The TIG weld cleaned up nicely though you can't see it in the image as we chose to display it as an end view with the slot cut and sized to fit. The titanium was easier to work with than was at first envisioned, probably the particular alloy had a high amount of aluminum in it. |
  The titanium was forged using a roofer's propane gas torch, an anvil, and a 3 pound hammer. |
The guard fiasco 27/10/02 It took three tries to get the guard right, partly because I was not sure what I was aiming for.
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Handle. 29/10/02 I chose a piece of 5 X 1.5 X 1 inch ebony for the handle that I had bought from Bob Engnath about ten years ago and never used. It seemed appropriate now. The block was marked on the outside to represent the desired location of the tang inside. A long drill bit was used to drill the holes for the tang and the web between the holes was knocked out with a 1/8 inch chisel. If a drill press is used its important to ensure that the quill stop can be set to a dept that is 1/4 inch longer than the length of the tang. |
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4/11/02 A Vee cutout was made in the ferrule which is something I don't normally do but I wanted to do this one a bit special. Mating the ebony block with the ferrule was made ten times harder because of the cutout and I would definitely think twice before attempting it again as it was an unmittigated nightmare getting the two parts to fit together seamlessly. Still its rare enough these days that such a nice blade comes my way so I want to do it justice. Eventually I resorted to scrapeing the ebony at the joint with a small sharp chisel. I would press the fitting on then take it apart and scrape, not carve, the high spots until in the end it all came together well. Still it was time consuming. |
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End Cap. 9/11/02 The end cap or in this case the end plate was to be a simple flat plate but I decided to dome it and so round the pommel somewhat. This was accomplished by simply cold forging an ordinary piece of austenitic 1/8 inch stainless sheet into a dished shape. I managed this by cutting the handle out of a three pound lump hammer and using the empty socket as a form to beat the sheet into. |
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10/11/02 The hole was hot punched from the outside prior to polishing the inside of the cap which was a bit of a mistake in procedure since it would have been better and easier to finish the inside of the cap first. Why finish the inside?..... well it makes the join between the cap and the ebony neater. |
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Fastening. 11/11/02 The end plate is secured by a high tensile steel bolt instead of the usual "allthread". The head is cut off the bolt and its shank welded into a slot cut in the end of the tang. |
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12/11/02 Here is the bolt all fitted up prior to welding. Two flats were ground into the shank to provide greater torque resistance between the tang and the bolt, should the weld prove less than perfect.. |
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14/11/02 It was arc welded by the local Harley Davidson guy who sees it as a welcome change from welding up specials and chops for the biker community in this area. A beer at the end of the day was ample recompense, plus a promise to bring the finished knife around to his shop for a look and see, once it was done. I was going to do that anyway as there is nothing more enjoyable than showing off a knife you made yourself. |
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16/11/02 Here it is all cleaned up and down to size again. |
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19/11/02 Preliminary assembly of the various parts once they were all brought to just oversize and close to final fit shows that there is more work to be done.. |
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And here it is. 29/01/2003 Its looking and handling like a knife at last. As an amateur knifemaker I have the luxury of tweaking it as long as I like so I may very well make changes in time.......I hope Rob likes it.... Its my first real serious Bowie and I have a better appreciation for the subtleties of the genre as a result. I think its time, for now, to turn to the other blade Rob sent me, the Classic Bowie.
List of tools used.
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DAMASCUS USA |  |
