I started on this about two months ago and now have a huge amount of respect for you guys that build these big bowies on a regular basis.  I don't get a lot of time to work on knives due to work, kids, and several other things, and it's really dragging this project out.  Anyway, I decided I'd go ahead and put up some pictures of my progress so far.  

Here's where I started:  1084, a scrap piece of mild steel, some copper thin stock, and a plain old ugly piece of koa.          

 

I didn't take a lot of pictures, so I wouldn't call this an actual WIP, but I will post a few pics from along the way.   Here's the blade forged and rough ground.  The tang got slimmed up a little after this, but this is the basic blade profile.



I'm ripping off Darcy's bleach etched finish for this one.  Here it is after grinding, hand sanding, and a couple of etching cycles.

Here's the finished blade with guard rough fit.  

And here's where it stands right now.  Blade finished and all fittings and handle material fit to tang.  The guard still needs a little more file shaping and then it's going to get bent to a slight S shape.  Then I have to do a little finish work on all of the fittings.  I rough shaped the handle on my belt grinder and then started with the files.  I've got both ends close to matching up with the metal fittings.  Once I get the ends shaped I'll file the middle down to blend it all together.  Once all that's done, I'll see if I can't wrap some cow around it.

Looking good Matt

Nice

Great work-looks good.

Jeremy

I probably won't post any more pictures of this one until it's finished, but I saw Lin's post about how he did the finial on his latest masterpiece and thought I'd add to it.  I did basically the same thing, as far as using my drill press, a file, and a little sand paper to build a finial.  But I used a threaded collar threaded onto the tang under my pomel and built a decorative finial screw that screws into the back end of the collar.  I just thought some of you guys that are like me and don't have a lathe might be interested in what I came up with since it's an easy to come by piece that I built it from.  The finial screw is posted below and literally took less than 5 minutes to build.  It started out as a plain old 125 grain field point.

 

Very nice !!!

   

Cool! I like BIG KNIVES and I cannot lie........    :D    Looking forward to the finished photo's.
Darcy    

Thanks guys.  I got the metal fittings finished about two minutes ago.  The handle is finished to 400 grit and received its first coat of tung oil earlier today.  Should have enough coats of oil and be ready for final assembly by the end of next week.    

Matt

That's a great idea for a finial!  Thanks for sharing that.

Not a problem.  Hope somebody else can use it.  This is actually my first knife with a butt cap for just that reason, I didn't know of a way to build a finial with the tools I had.  I thought of using a plain field point for this one because I'm building it for a guy that builds bows, but the field point just looked too plain, so I decided to try modifying it.  And I got lucky and it turned out pretty good.

Matt

Nice job on the finial.

Really nice work Matt!

The finial is very nice touch and good thinking too. Your grinds are most excellent.  Looking forward to seeing the finished project.

Steve
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Potomac Forge
Member. W.F. Moran Foundation

Got it done.  I didn't think shiney silver fittings were going to go with the antiqued finish on the blade.  I initially considered bead blasting and bluing the steel fittings but I decided I didn't want it that dark.  I finally settled on continuing the antiqued theme from the blade on through the handle.  I sanded the steel and copper fittings to 600 grit then repeated the same bleach etch finish from the blade on the steel fittings, although I didn't etch them as heavily.  The handle was sanded to 400 grit and then after 7 coats of tung oil, I think it is about right.  This is by far both the largest and most complex build I've done.  There are a few things I would do differently if I were to do it again, but overall I'm happy with how it turned out, and I definitely learned a lot from this build.  I'll try to get some better pictures up once the sheath is finished.  Let me know what you think and as always, any advice to help do it better next time is appreciated.

1084
Koa handle with mild steel fittings and copper trim
10 5/8"L x 2"W blade
16 1/2" OAL

 

Here's a couple closer pics of the handle and fittings.

Nice job Matt, it definitely has that "Old Knife" look. There is a lot of character to appreciate. I really like the field point finial idea.

I think it turned out very nice Matt. I like the copper accents with the antiqued blade.