Bowie Guard

[Vanknife]

Good day to All,
This a Bowie Guard that i did last week. All comments and critique welcome.

Cheers

"VAN"

[airamp]

Hi Van,

Very nice work.

Quite a bit of backround removal How did you do that?

Airamp

[WVEngraver]

Van,

nice engraving Van ... I've always thought these get engraved after assembly. Do you solder/braze these into place?

Chris

[Vanknife]

Thanks Chris and Airamp,

The Background removal was done with 90deg and flat gravers.

Chris the Bowie Guard is locked into place with small pins from the back and then the handle and everything else is glued and pinned together.

Cheers

"VAN"

[SVD]

Van

I hadn't heard of that construction technique before (not that I know much so it's not surprising).

I'm trying to picture this in my head: the guard is slipped over the tang and up to the blade. Then you put pins through the tang behind it to hold it firmly in place and these pins are later covered by the handle(s) which also help hold the guard in place?

I'm guessing the pins are to give more mechanical stability to the guard so that if you put the knife to actual hard use then the knocks that the guard take wouldn't be transmitted to the handle where they could work it loose?

Just curious - ask anyone and they'll tell you I'm a curious sort.:crazy:

[Mcahron]

Very nice guard!
SVD,Many of us knife makers use hidden pins to assemble our knives.If you do a search at The Knife Network on "take down knives" you can see some pics of disassembled take downs.For example many knives have the blade,then guard,then a spacer,then the handle itself.The guard would have two holes drilled in the back of the guard about half way through,then the spacer would have holes drilled all the way through,and finally the handle would have holes drilled about 3/8ths into the handle.These holes allow you to use pins to both strengthen the knife and to allow exact line up everytime you assemble and dissassemble the knife during construction.Some makers dont even glue the knife together after final fit and finish allowing the knife to be taken apart by the owner for cleaning and such.