Bowie Knife
My dad picked up a CVA Alamo Bowie Knife kit at an auction. I wanted to finish it by Christmas (2013), but I didn't quite make it. It seemed simple enough; all I need to do was sand and polish the rough brass castings, sand and stain the handle, assemble and lace up the sheath. It took a lot of sanding to make the brass caps flow into the wood grip. I started by using the belt sander on the castings to remove the mold flashing and corrosion. I then switched to hand sanding. I assemble the pieces to shape the brass and grip together with lower grit paper (120, 150 and 220). I then took it apart to keep the brass dust out of the wood. I took the wood to 600 grit and the brass to 1000. It was difficult to work around all the curves on the guard. I stained the grip with Minwax red mahogany. I put 2 coats of spray lacquer on, used steel wool to degloss it and finished with a coat of paste wax. I assembled everything and used thread locker on the threaded end cap. I then sanded the screwdriver slot off the threaded cap. I had to use pop rivets on the belt loop because the rivets that came with kit were garbage. They bent in the middle and didn't grip the leather. The sheath was the laced up.
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Click the pictures for larger images.