M40 Bowkri
Project - ContinuedAll Text, Graphics, Animations, Video, and Commentary on this website was created by, and is the intellectual property of m4040@m4040.com. All Rights Reserved. Unauthorized reproduction is punishable by up to a $500,000 fine or 5 years imprisonment for a first offense, and up to a $1,000,000 fine or up to 10 years imprisonment for subsequent offenses under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA). Requests for use of this material should be forwarded to m4040@m4040.com.
M40 Bowkri
Project - Continued
Here's a less decorative, field ready Bowkri I've been working on.
First, I bead blasted the blade after grinding and shaping to give me a rough, but uniform finish:
Next, I phosphated the blade. I used a simple "cold" phosphating process of 1 part phosphoric acid to 3 parts hot water (not boiling or anything, just hot from the tap. I got the phosphoric acid in the paint section of my local home depot (it's commonly used to clean and prep concrete surfaces for painting).
Here's my phosphating tank in action. It's an aluminum tank, so it doesn't get eaten... much. The white surface you see is suds caused by the etching action of the acid. The etching has a little odor, but a sheet of plastic wrap keeps it minimal.
About 20 minutes in the tank, and you can see the nice, dark gray phosphated finish.
This is rinsed in water to stop the etching. Before anyone decides to bitch about the acid going down the drain, remember that you're drinking a mild phosphoric acid solution every time you have a can of Coca-Cola!
Now it's time to Gun-Kote the blade. The Gun-Kote is distributed by Brownell's, a gunsmith supply house. It's a molybdenum-disulfide epoxy resin that has high lubricity and incredible toughness.
Gun-Kote
is best applied to a heated blade (about 100F). After application, it needs to
be baked onto the blade at 300F for about an hour to properly set the coating.
You need to take this into account when planning for blade hardness, as this can
drop the blade a couple Rockwell points!
Here's the blade a few minutes after applying the Gun-Kote... looks good so far. Now onto the sheath and handle.
Here's the leather cutouts I made both for the sheath and for handle scales to go underneath cord-wrapping.
The sheath will use the notch at the back of the blade for positive retention by means of a "locking flap".
Okay, here's the knife all cord-wrapped and the sheath outfitted with the flap (I still need to add either velcro or snaps to the flap).
It's not done, but it's getting there. I'm thinking about changing all the para-cord over to leather.
-M40-
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