You may remember Gene offering cable damascus blanks for work up. I bought this one from him....

http://www.centercross.com/damascus/fdb-004.jpg

I've just finished it up - well nearly, some finishing touches left, but it's a beaut and my fist ever knife, so I was just itching to post a pic. My camera has done some weird things, but it sort of looks right - this knife photography is loads harder than it looks!

Anyway, the blade is hammer forged, cable damascus, cryo treated and double tempered. Guard is bronze damascus (a peice Geno gave to me gratis - thanks Gene), bufalo horn spacer, turqoise stone spacer and bookmatched, stabalised Amboyna burl handle slabs. The mosaic pins I made myself, and a nickel silver thong hole.

Be kind, it's my first knife ;)

http://www.synobyte.com/pics/first.jpg

Martyn,

Great Job! That's a lot of detail for a first knife. You should be very proud.

Bob Sigmon

Thanks Bob, at times I thought I'd bitten off a bit more than I could chew ;) Still, I've delighted with the result. My photography is dreadful though, the turquoise stone is almost a complete whiteout. In reality, is a beautifully veined turqoise. You cant see the bronze damascus guard either, that's got little flecks of brass lightening in it and my filework has completely dissapeared - ahwell ;)

Good clean work. You've got one to be proud of!

Martyn,

There is always more to learn. Check out the Photography Forum, there are a couple of good discussions on lighting setups for photos. I haven't had time to setup anything yet so I sure have a long way to go.

Good Luck,

Bob Sigmon

Nice job man ... looks great!

Alex

Thanks guys ;)

I've updated the image with some clearer pics, my camera seems much better in daylight - cheaper/easier than a full lighting setup. You can now see all my blunders in glorious technicolour ;)

Great Job
Drool!

YOWEEEE!!! :eek: :eek: :eek:

Heyyyyy Martyn! Great job!! And this is your first???!!! Man, you have an eye for perfection! I love it all--including your NEW & IMPROVED pics ! What a knife!!!

Tell us about the hardest tasks and your procedures if you would. I'd sure like to hear how you completed this!

Coop

Thanks Coop, seeing as you asked twice and you being a namesake and all, I'd be happy to tell a story ;) :D

I got the blank from Geno about a month ago and have been working on it round my job (gotta pay for this stuff somehow ;) ). I was a little unsure about the finger grooves at first, they *can* be uncomfortable, but the blade was so nice I didn't mind much. As it turns out, it's the finger grooves I like best about this knife now. It just seems to find my hand so naturally. The balance is perfect too, just at the back of the forefinger groove, makes the blade really dextrous - love it!

I thought for a while, I had bitten off a little too much, I'll come to that in a minute. While I was thinking about how to put it together, and reading all I could in here, I decided to work on the guard and filework first. The snake pattern went OK on the spine. My files are cheap and few, so I kept it simple. I tried to make a series of cross-cuts like thumb grooves, that was a mistake. No way could I get them paralell. I abandoned it before I ruined the knife, and tideied up the ones I had done as best as I could - they kind of look OK now.

The guard was always going to be difficult. It was slotted as was the blade. The bronze damas gene gave me, looked great when blued...

http://www.synobyte.com/pics/guard.jpg

But I was going to have problems fitting it without any work afterwards. I suppose It could have been done, I just couldn't see how I was going to do it, without risking making a hash of things. I had another little problem...

http://www.synobyte.com/pics/problem.jpg

You see that little flat just behind the guard slot about 3mm wide - what a headache (for me anyway). I wanted the the finger groove to flow into the guard in a smooth curve, but that little flat meant that I had to think up something else. Either I had to abandon Geno's damascus guard in favour of a thicker peice of steel and widen the slot, or I had to cover the flat with a spacer. I wanted to keep the damas guard, so I opted for a spacer. I cut a slice of bufalo horn to match the same dimensions as the guard and slotted it with my dremel (that stuff smells awful). It looked good on a dry fit so I glued it all up with JB Weld. I put a rough finger curve into it after gluing and it looked good apart from a small area of JB weld visible at the join (anyone know how to dye this stuff black?), which is my only niggle with the whole knife.
See....
http://www.synobyte.com/pics/epoxy.jpg

I also had some turqoise from TKS just on the offchance I wanted to use it. That stuff is a pain too. Unprotected hard edges can chip like crazy, it was a pain making up the spacers 'cos they're pretty small. I got through about 4 of em before I got it right - just slightly oversize and chip free. I glued those up next.

The Amboyna burl was a dream to work, I just roughed out the profile slightly oversize before fitting, put vulcanised .20 black rubber spacers on and drilled the holes for the pins. Bizzarely, I couldn't get a 1/4" drill bit, so had to use 6.5mm, which is a thou' oversize - OK, but not precision. I made about a dozen dimples in the back of the slabs with the same drill to give the glue a good key. Seems very solid.

I made my own mosaic pins, which were probably the least painful thing in the whole job. There is a slight helix twist with the three brass capilaty tubes inside the N/S tube, which means I couldn't get perfect "face alignment" and had to opt for "closest" - but it's not too noticable.

Then I glued it all together with JB Weld - I was more impressed with this stuff than regular epoxy. I had found some curing problems with blackened epoxy during making the mosaic pins. It sort of cures a little rubbery, so I didn't trust it for handle fitting. I had more of the same problems when filling the filework. Firstly I had to dig our all the JB weld that had oozed in to the filework when glueing the slabs on, then the black epoxy didn't cure at all well. It left a few little pin holes and that same rubbery texture. I filled it over with a coat of superglue and it seems much better now. I'll be cautios about using that black epoxy for mission critical work in future.

After it was all glued up and cured for 18hrs or so, I started to shape it all aup with belt and dremel - I loved this bit - it was all comming to fruit, great fun. The scallops out of the finger grooves were easy to do with the dremel and give a real "pistol grip" feel. I cant emphasise my delight with this enough - I feels so nice in the hand.

http://www.synobyte.com/pics/grip.jpg

Above all else, thanks to Gene for his advice, help and for forging this blade, cheers mate, I'm chuffed to bits. :)

Martyn Cooper

WOW!, Martyn.
You did a great job.
I'm happy to have my little part in that one.
This IS the exact thing I wanted when I made that offer.
I wanted to help people like you, to push their own limits.
You did Brother, and look at what you have done, NICE!

You have another Brit working on one of my blanks.
Colin is going to grind his own from a hand forged blank.I Iook forward to seing that one too.It is a rather LARGE bowie.
From Texas to England, and beyond......

BTW, I meant to tell you, that flat was for a black spacer behind the guard.A "U" shaped spacer would have allowed the flow to the guard and blended that "spot" you were talking about.
Some Indian ink might penetrate the gray area and turn it black. I would heat it a little with a blow drier first, then apply the dye, let it dry, wipe and seal.

The bronze damascus can be used blue, but it has to be installed after the shaping and stuff.
I use a drop of super glue for fit up, shape everything, and polish it, then heat the guard to release the glue, blue it, and re attatch it with the JB Weld stuff. The blue would have really set off the turquoise for contrast.

Thanks for posting it, you did great. Next one will be even better, eh?
How about a composit blade with nickel twist?

Hey Coop, I know you want one of these too.
As long as you like to tinker with this kind of stuff...
Just imagine!

A few more might be poping up any day now from some other makers that gave it a try.

Well done Martyn, well done indeed.

Thanks Gene, I'm already looking around for my next project - got to give it a little while for the dust to settle (literaly), the missus won't want me spending too much time/money on my fantasies.

But, on yuour page of damascus blanks here...
www.centercross.com/damas...mascus.htm (http://www.centercross.com/damascus/damascus.htm)

This blade....
http://www.centercross.com/damascus/fdb-002.jpg

Is fabulous. The dimensions: 7-1/2" blade x 1/8"
1-1/4" tall are my only concern. I *really* want something thicker than 1/8" - something with some weight in the blade - a good 3/16" at least, other than that, it's perfect. Any chance of you forging one of these bad boys up for me? Exactly the same as above blade, but 3/16" + thick?

Oh, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on :)

Martyn, I would be happy to make it for you, but forst I must finish rebuilding the motor for my truck, so I can move the forge back in my shop.It is a mess right now.
Be blessed.

Hey Martyn, (...or can I call you 'Coop' ??!! ;) )

I just had to come back in here and admire your work once again. You have topped the charts on this knife and I can't wait for your next version. Thanks for taking such time explaining your processes and frustrations. I feel much better now.... ;)

I've got some learning to do to figure out how to do a fixed blade with pins and all. Sometime in the future....

Thanks again,

Coop