Chinobi Posted October 17, 2016 Share Posted October 17, 2016 Been dark for a while and I missed the forum have been busy in the meantime though! So this is the second full blade i have completed, figured id share it and see if i can get some constructive criticism. I will suspend 'if you dont have anything nice, dont say anything at all' for this purpose, im already pretty keenly aware of most of the flaws. I was more concerned with actually completing the project and the larger skill concepts, less so with spending hours and hours sanding. The blade was forged during a California Blacksmith Association anual class/event/sub-conference called Waynes World, which is a weekend bender of a class hosted by Wayne (surprise!) at his home shop near Riverside, this year the venerable Tony Swatton was our instructor, teaching us how to forge a wrap around tang handled knife and showed us some pretty neat techniques for wood handles. I have already made some in this pattern from mild steel, and half completed one in W1, so I as usual I wanted to do something over and above the minimum, hence the kukri. I also dont like to have a bunch of the same pattern or role of knives, so the kukri pattern was a first for me, and quite a challenge to forge! The starting stock was 6 inches of 1/4" by 2" new stock 5160 spring steel forged by hand to yeild a 6" blade and 10.5" overall length knife. Big shoutout to my friend Steevens for the Every Day Kukri (EDK) moniker, its big enough to handle most chopping tasks, but small enough to pack along easily. After I make a sheath for it, that is. Took me an hour to drill the holes in the tang, which I stupidly hardened as much as the blade. Heated the blade for HT in an electric kiln so the whole thing was up to temp and I didnt want to leave the tang out of the oil and have it smoking like the devil or possibly flare up on me so I just dunked the whole thing. Ended up submerging the blade in a bucket of water at home and torched the life out of the tang with my plumbers torch to draw the temper back as much as possible or kinda faux anneal it. Managed to punch the holes through after that with a regular bit, but my 1/4" will never be the same again, its *seen* things man! XD The handle scales are purple heart and the liners are a ruberized gasket material, the mosaic pins I bought from Tru-Grit at a knife show, lanyard tube is a simple brass tube. The bead is mostly the same construction, the endcaps are brass sheet metal with two sizes of brass tube that nest within each other with one soldered on to each plate. The center layer is brass and copper mokume, from a billet edge trimming I saved from a billet I forged in a class taught by Jay Burnham Kidwell a few years ago, had to forge it carefully on edge to spread the material wider to match the dimensions of the bead design and the wood. Went with blue paracord to tie the liners together between the handle and the bead. The mokume doesnt read well in the bead right now, its too freshly finished. I can't heat patina it without killing the epoxy or burning the liners or wood, and I don't have much for chemical patina except liver of sulphur, but I dont think I can safely apply that without fouling the rest up next to it. So I'm just going to let it ride naturally, which should show up fairly well by the end of the week. Sharpened freehand on a 220 belt on my 1x42 and stropped on my paddle, it slices magazine paper readily and chops efficiently. Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated, thank you and thanks for looking! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JHCC Posted October 17, 2016 Share Posted October 17, 2016 That's really, really nice. The only thing I could say is that the back of your bevel doesn't match the edge; in other words, you have a nice sweeping curve of the edge, but the back edge of the bevel has some abrupt changes in direction. Smooth out that transition, and it'll be even better. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chinobi Posted October 17, 2016 Author Share Posted October 17, 2016 Thank you, yes I had some difficulty figuring out the grind on that. Very little practice hollow grinding, and that's the first recurve I've attempted. I had access to a 10" contact wheel on a burr king in the class, at home I just have a partially exposed 2" wheel on the top of my grinder, so I couldn't continue to fiddle with it after the fact. Which is probably for the better, as I would have chased that to destruction I'm sure! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gorō Posted November 21, 2016 Share Posted November 21, 2016 Looks nice. How big was the starting stock for the kiukri? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Buzzkill Posted November 21, 2016 Share Posted November 21, 2016 On 10/17/2016 at 3:35 PM, Chinobi said: The starting stock was 6 inches of 1/4" by 2" new stock 5160 spring steel forged by hand to yeild a 6" blade and 10.5" overall length knife. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gorō Posted November 27, 2016 Share Posted November 27, 2016 I've got a bar of W2 that wasn't the thickness that I wanted. Abkut 3/4 into drawing the bar out. Thinking about forging it into either kukri/bowie/seax. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chinobi Posted December 5, 2016 Author Share Posted December 5, 2016 Thanks Buzzkill. Gorō you would be amazed at the amount of stretch a good distal taper can generate. Forge a taper on the flat side down the length of your tang starting from roughly the choil/top of handle area and another from the same spot up to the tip of the blade. Very economical use of material and will save you a lot of time on the grinder when you don't have to chew off and waste all that metal to get the balance right Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tubalcain2 Posted December 5, 2016 Share Posted December 5, 2016 i am fer from an expert knife maker but i think you did a fantastic job. keep it up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chinobi Posted December 5, 2016 Author Share Posted December 5, 2016 Much appreciated! And I have no intention of stopping Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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