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Here's the "Alaskan" all dressed up and ready to party: A W2 Bowie at 10 1/4" with some northern California stabilized feather walnut and faceted and selectively polished take-down 416 fittings. 15 1/2" overall. Hope ya'll have a great Thanksgiving.

This one?? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9Zv6dnlri4

That was a pretty special knife! Glad you enjoy it. Seriously, I just use whatever is handy - like a semi used 120 or even an A45 Gator - whatever is handy. Then I take it to the work station like in the picture and start with a sanding block and straighten it out with a 220, then final shaping...

I hold them in my hand and grind it off on the flat platen. Keep it simple.

I'm also going to guess that if you did two back to back heat treating cycles, you not only got more carbon into solution as the cumulative effect like Kevin mentions, but you did not say how long you let the oven cycle at your 1450 target temp on the first go-'round. If you just got it UP TO...

Got to get this finial made: That doesn't look right!! That's better: Try it on the knife: I do place the tightening hole so it can't be seen from the sides when it's tight. Polished the facet on the butt cap and finished off the other two sides:

I had a question from the new owner of this knife so I find myself on the computer again. Might as well toss up a few more pictures: Get some stainless out to make the finial: The, I got distracted and had to do some refinement. My sanding station for cleaning up the fitting facets: The...

There was a question about blade distal taper:

Now it's a bunch of time cleaning up all the grinding marks and straightening up the facets on the hardware. As well, I will be going to the lathe and making the official finial. Be back later today. :biggrin:

This brings us to where I am this morning:

Now scribe a couple guide lines. I do this free hand on my flat platen. Amazing how just taking the corners off can entirely change the character of the knife: Do the same to the guard and cut in a couple slots in the spacer: A little alcohol:

You may have gather what I'm doing here - I shaped the knife hardware FIRST! Then, using those as my guides, I shape the handle material TO the pieces. I just use them as my guide. A little 220 sand paper work to clean up the file marks: Some denatured alcohol: And we can see where...

Now pin the butt cap: Then, get it profiled: Now, I profile the guard: And see how things are moving along: Back to the vise pedestal and my knife vise. The combination of these two tools let me place the knife in any position on the map: I use Nicholson Cabinet Maker's rasp...

The first piece I shape is the spacer. It is NOT!!! a ferule. If you don't know what a ferule is - look it up. I use the slot to mark the outer sides of the spacer. Using the slot and a caliper keeps everything centered. Simple - right? I keep on hand a selection of different sized washers...

Some folks may say these steps are over the top and unnecessary. I disagree. I say they ELIMINATE time later on. In one way or another, we all try to keep things straight and more often than not find ourselves needing to make corrections later on. I'm just getting the center figured out now, at...

Well, I just had a long new post to the thread here and the electric company decided to bo a planned outage!! Maybe they planned on it - I didn't. So - here we go again: With all the parts assembled, I go back to the surface plate and the "dead nuts" block. The block has been surface ground on...

I forge in distal taper in the blade from the beginning. It comes to a fine point. I'll get a picture of that today. I try to keep the tang exactly the same thickness as the ricasso until the guard is fitted. Then it tapers some down to the dimension of the threaded end.

Dig into the bit box. I like to keep small tooling in plastic boxes so I can move them from work station to work station. I do have two tool boxes on my bench, but mostly for things that I will only use in that location. I work in three or four different spots, so I like to be able to take my...

Now let's thread the tang. I often use 12-28 threads or 10-32. This one is going to be a 10-32, which needs to be about .190" for me to thread. So, I first square the tang on my flat platten at about .200": Then I cut the four corners off and turn it into an octagon with all facets at...