I have saved a few pics of Mr. Rhea's knives and especially like a particular bowie of his that he posted quite some time back. This is by no means close to his kind of good stuff, but his knives did drive some of the design on this one.
I recently forged this blade out and didn't realize until afterwards that it was a San Mai billet of L6/1084 I did at a friend's house a while back. I'd be willing to bet the core's gonna end up all wonky...but, oh well :rolleyes: .
After roughing things in on the belt grinder, my new disc setup got the first run and I must say-I REALLY like it. Also the first time I used my height gauge/surface plate, which I also really liked.
Notice the painfully poorly forged-in shoulders...
(http://i959.photobucket.com/albums/ae71/gudspelr/San%20Mai%20Fighter/RoughGrinding_zps605155ad.jpg) (http://s959.photobucket.com/user/gudspelr/media/San%20Mai%20Fighter/RoughGrinding_zps605155ad.jpg.html)
I cleaned it up more and changed the profile to have a longer clip, which I'm glad I did-it's a bit more reminiscent of Mr. Rhea's that I liked so much. During the quench, I messed up and managed to get the tip bent. So, during the tempering cycles, I clamped it to a curved piece of wagon wheel rim.
(http://i959.photobucket.com/albums/ae71/gudspelr/San%20Mai%20Fighter/Bending_zpsb1c36337.jpg) (http://s959.photobucket.com/user/gudspelr/media/San%20Mai%20Fighter/Bending_zpsb1c36337.jpg.html)
(http://i959.photobucket.com/albums/ae71/gudspelr/San%20Mai%20Fighter/BendingSide_zpsfbcfc8ae.jpg) (http://s959.photobucket.com/user/gudspelr/media/San%20Mai%20Fighter/BendingSide_zpsfbcfc8ae.jpg.html)
After the initial clamping, it didn't hold... Put it all back and back in the oven for the last cycle and after I took it out, I left it alone until nice and cool. Thankfully, it's back to straight :) .
(http://i959.photobucket.com/albums/ae71/gudspelr/San%20Mai%20Fighter/PostHT_zps36e83964.jpg) (http://s959.photobucket.com/user/gudspelr/media/San%20Mai%20Fighter/PostHT_zps36e83964.jpg.html)
I'm thinking of a wrought iron guard and maybe a piece of stabilized wood that's been sitting around for a while. Will have to see how it all looks together before I decide. Plus, the whole thing could derail long before then, anyway...
Jeremy
Can't wait to see it finished!
Steve
------------
Potomac Forge
Member, W.F. Moran Jr. Museum & Foundation
Well, turns out I was right-I managed to derail the whole thing... Through a couple of grinding process errors, this knife ended up at a place where I knew I'd never be satisfied with it, regardless of the "fixes" I could do. So, I threw an etch on it just to see and sure enough, one side had the outer layer near the edge and the other up high. I decided to do a little testing and broke the blade in half. On the plus side, the structure looked fairly good-sort of milky in appearance, except for the very outer edges (not entirely certain what that means). I also hacked a bit at my hard resin bench top and found something interesting. I was just having a conversation with someone today about edge geometry. How, depending on the steel, you may nail the heat treat, but if you take it too thin, it just won't hold up. I had an area on the blade that was very thin, though not sharp, and it started to very mildly deform. Towards the heel, it had just a bit more meat left on it and there was no chipping, rolling, etc. and it left big marks on the edge of my bench.
So, while this knife didn't make it to the end, I still learned from it and the next should be better.
Jeremy