The Ridiculously Large Bowie

[Stormcrow]

Some time back, Max, the Marine who visited my shop on the return leg to L.A. on his cross-country van trip, saw a Bowie I had forged out earlier that week on a whim. I had a piece of 1 1/2" x 1/4" 1084 bar stock and I wanted to make a wide blade out of it. The Ridiculously Large Bowie was born.

Before he left, Max wrote a check for the Ridiculously Large Bowie. I mailed it to him last week. Its final dimensions ended up being 14 1/4" overall with a blade 8 1/2" long by 2 1/4" wide. The spine was still between 3/16" and 1/4", so I could have pulled it out even wider if I had wanted. In spite of its large size, it is surprisingly quick and not particularly heavy.

Here's the RLB as Max saw it:



Next to the more normal-sized Bowie I forged along with Max as a demonstration of how to make his own:



The demonstration Bowie, by way of comparison, has a blade 1 3/4" wide.

And as it arrived to Max, with shellac-sealed hemp main wrap, three-strand and two-strand Turk's head knots in cotton, and a shaving sharp edge:





In comparison with an EDC-sized knife with about a 4" blade:





Max was quite pleased to have it arrive and described it as "lovely" with a Marine-grade adjective in front of that. I've
already had a request to make another one from another customer.
Here's the Bowie Max made on his visit:

And him enjoying his Bowie and a cigar in my shop:

[don't tread on me]

I made a bigger one from a truck spring. The blade is 9 in, overall it is 15 1/2 in long.

[Stormcrow]

I've made much longer, but this is the widest I've done. I split a table at gun shows with a fellow who has several wider blades, but compared to what I usually make, this is Ridiculously Large. It was seeing him working on his that gave me the itch to make a wide one.

[David Einhorn]

An interesting article on Bowie Knives may be found at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowie_knife