For Christmas this year, my son ordered the parts for a Bowie knife from Crazy Crow Trading Post to be sent to me. The parts consisted of a 6 1/2" blade, a block of curly maple, a steel guard, a grip cap and some large brass rivets.
After doing a bit of research on the types of grips on other Bowie knives I settled on the one shown in the pictures.
The blade has a tang on it that is about 1/8" thick by 1/2" tall and 3 3/4" long. It isn't the threaded kind so the grip cap I received couldn't be used. Besides, I really didn't like the round look of it.
The guard that came in the box is a long steel oval, about 1/8" thick. Thru the middle of this is a slot that is 1/8" wide X 3/4" long. The length of this meant the guard could slide up and down after it was installed on the tang and I didn't want this to happen so I soft soldered it to the blade.
Because of the 1/2" height of the tang, making thin flat scales to mount on either side of the tang wouldn't work so I considered burning a hole into the center of the block for it.
This seemed like it would be a lot of work because of the length of the tang so I decided to split the maple block in half.
After sawing it it two and sanding the mating surfaces so they would be perfectly flat when they were glued together, I cut a trench or mortise about 5/64" deep in each of them to match the height and length of the tang on the blade.
After sliding the tang into the mortise's to keep them aligned, I glued them together with Elmer's Wood glue.
After the glue hardened I removed the blade and drew a outline of the shape I wanted for the handle on the block and proceeded to shape it using a 2 1/2" drum sander with 80 grit sandpaper mounted on it. Then I epoxied the tang on the blade into the hole.
Although the epoxy would hold the handle in place I figured it wouldn't look right without some sort of mechanical thing to hold it in place so I examined the rivets they sent to me.
The heads on these are over 1/4" in diameter which IMO is much too large for a knife this size.
After looking thru my junk pile I couldn't find any of my brass wire to use for a rivet but I remembered I did have some very heavy solid copper wire that would work. Besides, I think using some pure copper wire would be different and it might look good too.
With this in mind, I drilled two holes thru the handle and tang for the wire rivets and then swaged both ends of them using a small hammer.
Speaking of drilling those two rivet holes, it turned out that my soldering the guard in place was helpful in softening the blades tang but even so, getting the drill to work near the guard end wasn't easy. Had I thought about it, I should have used a torch to anneal the whole tang before I epoxied it into the handle.
Speaking of the blade for a moment, that thing came polished and sharpened to a razor blade sharpness. After cutting myself several times while working with it I decided it needed some protection added to it. The sooner the better. To do this, I got out a length of 1/4" vinyl tubing I had laying around. I split one side of the tubeing with a razor blade and then slid it down over the sharp edge of the blade with the blade sticking out of the slit. Using some blue painters tape to keep it in place finished the job of making it safe to handle with my bare hands.
Getting back to finishing the knife, after doing the final sanding on the handle I whiskered it twice and then applied a wash of lye water to increase the contrast between the curls stripes. I followed this with two coats of Solar alcohol based Maple stain and half a dozen coats of Birchwood Casey Tru-Oil.
The final knife has a few warts on it but I didn't expect to end up with something that looked like a pro made it.
It still has a few areas that need some additional polishing but for the moment, I think I'm done with it.
After doing a bit of research on the types of grips on other Bowie knives I settled on the one shown in the pictures.
The blade has a tang on it that is about 1/8" thick by 1/2" tall and 3 3/4" long. It isn't the threaded kind so the grip cap I received couldn't be used. Besides, I really didn't like the round look of it.
The guard that came in the box is a long steel oval, about 1/8" thick. Thru the middle of this is a slot that is 1/8" wide X 3/4" long. The length of this meant the guard could slide up and down after it was installed on the tang and I didn't want this to happen so I soft soldered it to the blade.
Because of the 1/2" height of the tang, making thin flat scales to mount on either side of the tang wouldn't work so I considered burning a hole into the center of the block for it.
This seemed like it would be a lot of work because of the length of the tang so I decided to split the maple block in half.
After sawing it it two and sanding the mating surfaces so they would be perfectly flat when they were glued together, I cut a trench or mortise about 5/64" deep in each of them to match the height and length of the tang on the blade.
After sliding the tang into the mortise's to keep them aligned, I glued them together with Elmer's Wood glue.
After the glue hardened I removed the blade and drew a outline of the shape I wanted for the handle on the block and proceeded to shape it using a 2 1/2" drum sander with 80 grit sandpaper mounted on it. Then I epoxied the tang on the blade into the hole.
Although the epoxy would hold the handle in place I figured it wouldn't look right without some sort of mechanical thing to hold it in place so I examined the rivets they sent to me.
The heads on these are over 1/4" in diameter which IMO is much too large for a knife this size.
After looking thru my junk pile I couldn't find any of my brass wire to use for a rivet but I remembered I did have some very heavy solid copper wire that would work. Besides, I think using some pure copper wire would be different and it might look good too.
With this in mind, I drilled two holes thru the handle and tang for the wire rivets and then swaged both ends of them using a small hammer.
Speaking of drilling those two rivet holes, it turned out that my soldering the guard in place was helpful in softening the blades tang but even so, getting the drill to work near the guard end wasn't easy. Had I thought about it, I should have used a torch to anneal the whole tang before I epoxied it into the handle.
Speaking of the blade for a moment, that thing came polished and sharpened to a razor blade sharpness. After cutting myself several times while working with it I decided it needed some protection added to it. The sooner the better. To do this, I got out a length of 1/4" vinyl tubing I had laying around. I split one side of the tubeing with a razor blade and then slid it down over the sharp edge of the blade with the blade sticking out of the slit. Using some blue painters tape to keep it in place finished the job of making it safe to handle with my bare hands.
Getting back to finishing the knife, after doing the final sanding on the handle I whiskered it twice and then applied a wash of lye water to increase the contrast between the curls stripes. I followed this with two coats of Solar alcohol based Maple stain and half a dozen coats of Birchwood Casey Tru-Oil.
The final knife has a few warts on it but I didn't expect to end up with something that looked like a pro made it.
It still has a few areas that need some additional polishing but for the moment, I think I'm done with it.