I know this isn't up to the quality I see posted on here, but I thought I'd share. This represents a LOT of firsts for me. It's my first Bowie, first S-guard, first take down, first time working with wrought iron, and it's the first time I've made San Mai. It's a 1084 core with 15n20 jacket San Mai, wrought iron fittings and ironwood handle. I'm kind of proud of the pummel/tang nut, considering I don't have a lathe. I tapped a hole in a piece of wrought, chucked a piece of threaded rod in my cordless drill, threaded the wrought onto the other end of the threaded rod, and turned it on my grinder, and cut the groove with a file while in the drill.
I'm not sure if it's finished or not. Like I said it's San Mai. Shane Taylor is planning to help me with etching the wrought iron, and I was going to have him help me with the blade etch as well. But I know there's more to getting the cool black and white two tone look out of the San Mai, than just dunking it in acid. So at this point I might just call it done rather than risk me messing up the blade after all this work. I'll wait until I can get it over to Shane's shop and see what he has to say.
I'd say you did very well.
For all those firsts, it looks great. That no lathe pommel nut looks awesome. It is always difficult to know when you are finished, at least for me!
Thanks for the kind words. I decided to etch it. Shane gave me a starter lesson on it today, so we shall see how it comes out in a few days. Tips are always welcomed.
Well, I did some etching. I'm not very happy with it. First, the wrought iron was all from the same bar, and all finished to 800 grit, yet all etched very differently. The tang nut came out beautiful, almost a damascus pattern in it. The guard came out looking like it's been parkerized or sand blasted, and the three spacers came out just kind of muddy and blah.
The blade itself came out better, but I kept messing up the etch on the core material while sanding the jacket material. I after I had done a ferric chloride etch many times, I switched to instant coffee. I got the nice dark black I wanted, but still managed to mess it up when sanding the jacket. In frustration I sanded the chacket (2500 grit) then did several short coffee etches, 20-40 minutes each, and buffing the jacket with a paper towel after each one. I figured if I did short etches I could keep the lighter etch buffed off and if I did mess up the core steel's etch in the process it would have several chances to re-etch.
That worked out OK, but I couldn't keep the jacket as clean looking as I wanted, and after showing the blade off many times, and wiping finger prints off after each person, I see where some of the areas I bumped with when sanding the jacket with the 2500 grit paper, have lost their coffee etch and are showing the 2500 grit scratches again.
Any advice?
