Forging a Copper Damascus Bowie Knife

hey folks welcome to the channel today we're  going to start a new build this one is going   to be as you can see have some copper in it so my  friend chad kimmel gave me this piece of damascus   it's actually two pieces cut so we're going to use  this as the outer cladding then some copper a thin   piece of 15 and 20 another piece of copper  1095 core and then the same on the other side all right let's weld this up i  think it's going to look pretty cool   i found out after recording that intro that chad  got that piece of damascus from salem straub who   i have crazy respect for as a bladesmith  go check out salem's channel i will link   it down in the description he does amazing work  when creating a kumai billet probably the most   important thing is to weld all of the seams just  to make sure that the copper doesn't leak out hey dad that doesn't look like  it has four dwelling temperatures   you're right molly it's not that's  because we're not sticking steel   to steel we're sticking steel to copper  which only requires about 1700 degrees fahrenheit after a couple presses  at a red heat we're ready to start   squishing out this billet and  getting some length out of it once in a while these rounding  dies don't get aligned perfectly   so they're coming in contact offset  and that's what gives me this banana this is an important step i use these  aggressive rounding dies every inch or so   that's what's going to give you a lot  of movement in the pattern because   it's going to put some valleys there  that you're going to flatten out later hey folks got this all forged out now um it's  right thickness now i was just debating which   knife type i was going to make originally i  had said i was going to do one of my thresher   hunting knives but now thinking about it  maybe i want to do this as this guy which   is one of the tiger model um it just means it's  going to take longer because it needs a guard   um but i think i'm going to go this route all  right let's get it drawn on here and start   grinding out the profile before i get any crap in  the comments i figured i'd answer this question   you don't want to forge a sandmire anything  that's layered like a sanmai all that does   is thin out your center layer and you really  just won't get a pattern so you don't forge the   bevel on a sandmi or any kind of kumai here you  can see how thin the core is between the copper   you have to be really precise when you grind  this to make sure your cord is in the center you'll notice i'm running my  finger across the edge here   that'll make sure that it's smooth and  there's no high spots or uneven spots   here i'm using an angle grinder just to take  off the scale so i can save belts on the 2x72 notice i left the rebar as part of the tang  i needed an extra length so i'm going to   leave that on there as part of the tang  it's already welded on there really well i've grown to love this surface grinding  attachment i consider it a vital piece of my   shop now since i wanted to use that rebar as part  of the tang i just needed to straighten it out and   i certainly didn't want to put this thing back  in the forge so oxyacetylene it is as per usual   this thing needs some layout fluid we're going to  put some lines on it so we know where to grind to first we're going to do the false edge with  my file jig so there i've used my jig to do   the false edge on this side uh so i want to  talk about that for a bit so i always do this   before i do the bevel which means before i put  any kind of distal taper on the blade you'll   notice that the height of the false edge is the  same all the way down and that's what you want   because once i start doing the distal taper  during the grind it if i move the camera here   then i'm going to take this so that this meets  the tip right here and it kind of swoops up   so that's the important part is to get this  all the way to the tip and then you want   to bring this up close here because you  don't want to see this bevel at the tip   so anyway that's how i do my false edges guys um  i just find it's easier it's more predictable to   use the jig like this instead of the grinder  i've got a fresh 36 grit belt on the grinder   now it's time to grind in the bevels at least the  initial bevel i'll finish it off after heat treat on the initial grind i like to go no more than 3   16 to my lines and on the edge i'll leave it  at least the thickness of a nickel sometimes   a dime just because i want to make sure it's  good in the heat treat and there's no warp the blade's already been normalized at 1600  1450 and 1250 now it's time for the quench remember folks you got to leave it in the oil  for at least 10 seconds preferably 20 or 30.   no fireballs right after the quench i always  clamp it between angle irons for the temper so here's the blade after tempering looks pretty good i love the color on the  copper after the temper i wish you could get   it to stay this way let's do some grinding  back to the surface grinder to do the flats   this time with 120 grit belt and then i'll move  on and redo the bevels again with 120 grit belt now i'll be taking the bevel up much higher  where i want it to be for the final build   i also have to be careful to watch the edge and  make sure that the core is nice and centered you'll notice as i'm getting closer to the  tip i pull the blade away from the belt   and that gives me that curve so  you'll see i'm kind of sweeping   that in and that's how you get  that nice curve on your bevel well folks there it is after some hand sanding  um i've only sanded it to 220 so far so still   a bit more to do but um looks really good  i'm pretty happy with it um it looks just   like the last one i did but i can't wait to  etch it but we got a lot to do before then   so here i am at the mill milling the  shoulders when you know it i bust an end mill   this is kind of the start to uh  everything that happens today i thought this part would be interesting for  anyone who's not a machinist this is an edge   finder and it just kind of spins you flick the  tip and as it gets close to the edge of something   then it'll actually kick over and you'll see  it here and that's you know you're at the edge   then you can go to the other side and i'm using  this to get the center of this piece of stock i found the first edge i zeroed the dro and now  i have a half feature now that'll give me the   center of my part another machinist technique  here is that side milling or taking an end mill   and going back and forth sideways is actually  really hard on them so it's much better to do   drilling to take away most of the material and  then side mill so that's what i'm doing here so there's the guard fit up no gap happy with that okay time to etch this baby what we're going  to do is wash it off with soap and water so i made sure all of the  soap is off of it i'm going to   keep it wet this is my special tank of  ferric chloride that i use for copper   because copper will contaminate it so you  don't want to put this in your regular   um ferric chloride or when you dip a  blade you'll get a copper tinge to it so i'm gonna have this wet so it'll all right folks uh i've got it all etched up it's  beautiful i can't wait for you guys to see it but   you'll have to wait to the end so now it's time  to start thinking about the handle i already   have the guard slotted like you saw but now i  want to do the handle so i was going to do this   because it's a nice big piece i love the green  with the copper but after seeing the blade   i think i'm going to go away from this one for two  reasons one i kind of want a coppery color and two   i'm going to do a sectional handle here a two  piece because of the way that the tang is curved   it's just really hard to get this shape in  here so what i'm gonna do instead of that   i've got this piece of mammoth molar  which is a beautiful piece and it's a huge   sorry it's a block it's not huge  and that's part of the problem   i don't typically make handles this small  so i'm going to cut this put a block here   then that'll take this and then i can  just do this piece into this which is   a fantastic piece and this is one of those  pieces from ola oleg so i love the figuring   in this one and this is going to look amazing  um as the bottom part of the handle and that'll   make it easier so i don't have to do  this curve all right let's get to it so very chippy this stuff plus i had to i had  to send back the other piece of this to the   manufacturer because it wasn't uh stabilized  and i'm starting to think this one is the same well i am not confident using this well folks  i'm not going to use the molar on this one   as you can see it blew out even though i was  super careful with it it's really chippy and   i just don't have the time or patience for it  today so what i'm going to do is or what i've done   this is a maple burl from more borrows  what i did was just cut off a piece   these pieces here sorry you trying  to keep them stacked together   so i've just used those as spacers and um there's  actually black g10 on either side of those   um and then copper and i think that'll  be a nice accent to this which will go   here i hate grinding copper after a single pass  on the grinder i had to dip this this took forever well folks there it is all glued up i'm  sorry you didn't see many of those parts but   um it was one of those days um i actually had to  redo these um the slots ended up being too big   there was a whole bunch of trials and tribulations  here um so i kind of just wanted to get it done   you may think this looks really goofy  at a goofy angle but when you see the um   the handle on it you will  understand it goes like that   so now it's time to cut some of this out do  the profile and get to grinding the handle this is a great little tool if you don't  have a small wheel attachment and even   if you do sometimes you just can't get  into small places like i couldn't hear hey because of the copper accents and the copper  pin i couldn't really spend a lot of time   grinding on this because it would heat those  up too much so there was a lot of hand filing

Channel: Tyrell Knifeworks

Views: 1,865,640

Rating: 4.9173775 out of 5

Keywords: Forging a Copper Damascus Bowie Knife, cu mai, copper damascus, forging cu mai, making cu mai, how to make cu mai, forging a bowie, making a bowie knife, forging a bowie knife, forging a damascus bowie knife, damascus bowie knife, knife making, copper damascus knife, cu mai damascus, tyrell knifeworks, making a damascus bowie knife, making copper damascus, copper damascus steel

Id: 95rL86GvweI

Length: 19min 24sec (1164 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 18 2021