- Joined
- Jan 26, 2002
- Messages
- 2,737
Except for minor editing, this is pretty much what I've sent to Uncle regarding a 49 oz GRS that Art has worked on. It had a soft edge that was ground pretty flat and a little thin. I hope Art doesn't mind the quote, but his way says it best, I think.
*************
Got my GRS back from Art yesterday.
He corresponded with me several times during the process and even provided a photo of the blade after hardening.
I asked him to harden the khuk as he thought it should be done. This is his response:
"I would normally harden a khukuri blade to within about an inch of the cho if it were for my own use. The blade back from the sweet spot, thru the recurve and back nearly to the cho would be hardened but tempered to be softer than the sweet spot and belly. The point would also be tempered a little softer than the belly and sweet spot. The YCS has both the handle and brass inlays to protect, so I hardened only as the pic shows. I was mostly worried about melting out some of the inlay.
Your GRS is beautiful, and it is definitely worth every effort to save such a fine tool. If worse comes to worst, we can take off the handle and harden the blade in my forge, but I think we can restore the GRS to its full usefulness with the handle attached. Your blade is so massive that a short section near the cho can be left a little soft as it will not likely hit anything hard like a knot or a rock. Even used as a drawknife, the cho area would not be needed hard. Hard and soft are relative terms here, of course. Were still talking about steel, which in its softest solid state is still much harder than the iron and bronze tools used by men for centuries."
That is presumably what he's done and excellent testing results so far (see below).
He chopped some osage orange and locust to test it before shipping out.
Art has hardened and reground the edge with very little change to the blade shape. He has volunteered to do further, more drastic ginding on the blade if it is needed, but prefers to take small steps so that the blade profile is not altered unless absolutely necessary. HI has a true friend in Art, he seems to have taken on the difficult task of matching the HI guarantee.
Below is the e-mail I sent to Art.
-------------------
The GRS came yesterday.
Your work looks excellent. I think the new edge you ground is a good compromise between thickening it up and retaining the original blade shape. I generally sharpen my khuks by stropping with fine emory paper on top of an old mouse pad, and try to maintain the edge with chromium dioxide honing compound, so the new edge will eventually smooth out a little into a convex edge of sorts anyway. Not that it needs sharpening now, little point in this being a "shaver", and no doubt a bit unsettling to test.
So far I've chopped through a 6-7 inch diam. section of the hard loquat log and split several 3-4 inch diam. sections with no problems what so ever. The wood has twisty grain and knots, so the splitting involves sticking the edge, and repeated slamming of the wood and the knife onto a chopping block or another log section. May take 10-15 times before splitting. I often used both arms with a hand-and-a-half grip, so that's something I suspect most knives wouldn't stand up to. It's hard to stick the edge very deep initially, and this is the kind of tough use that I suspect would tear out the edge of a lesser knife. The knife twisted out a few times with no damage at all. I didn't even try splitting with the original edge. I also split a couple by pounding on the spine with another piece of wood, but that takes a lot longer, since it doesn't use the weight of the knife. Pounding on the spine is the only way that I could split this stuff with my lighter khuks. Pounding an ordinary
hatchet with a hammer to split this stuff takes forever. Can't compare to a good axe or maul and wedge on this wood, I don't have them since wood is generally pretty scarce in my area. People buy little bundles of firewood for ridiculous prices at the supermarket. This tree that had to be taken down is a bit of a windfall. (yuck, bad pun)
I'll be using it more later this week and let you know if there are any problems, but so far it sure looks like you've given it a long and useful life.
------------------
*************
More chopping to be done, but don't expect me to chop up any car roofs or oil drums--don't have any in the back yard, and I don't think the landlord would approve anyway. I'll try to hone it up to shaving sharp or close to it, and see about fine edge retention, though that's probably more relevant on a lighter khuk.
*************
Got my GRS back from Art yesterday.
He corresponded with me several times during the process and even provided a photo of the blade after hardening.
I asked him to harden the khuk as he thought it should be done. This is his response:
"I would normally harden a khukuri blade to within about an inch of the cho if it were for my own use. The blade back from the sweet spot, thru the recurve and back nearly to the cho would be hardened but tempered to be softer than the sweet spot and belly. The point would also be tempered a little softer than the belly and sweet spot. The YCS has both the handle and brass inlays to protect, so I hardened only as the pic shows. I was mostly worried about melting out some of the inlay.
Your GRS is beautiful, and it is definitely worth every effort to save such a fine tool. If worse comes to worst, we can take off the handle and harden the blade in my forge, but I think we can restore the GRS to its full usefulness with the handle attached. Your blade is so massive that a short section near the cho can be left a little soft as it will not likely hit anything hard like a knot or a rock. Even used as a drawknife, the cho area would not be needed hard. Hard and soft are relative terms here, of course. Were still talking about steel, which in its softest solid state is still much harder than the iron and bronze tools used by men for centuries."
That is presumably what he's done and excellent testing results so far (see below).
He chopped some osage orange and locust to test it before shipping out.
Art has hardened and reground the edge with very little change to the blade shape. He has volunteered to do further, more drastic ginding on the blade if it is needed, but prefers to take small steps so that the blade profile is not altered unless absolutely necessary. HI has a true friend in Art, he seems to have taken on the difficult task of matching the HI guarantee.
Below is the e-mail I sent to Art.
-------------------
The GRS came yesterday.
Your work looks excellent. I think the new edge you ground is a good compromise between thickening it up and retaining the original blade shape. I generally sharpen my khuks by stropping with fine emory paper on top of an old mouse pad, and try to maintain the edge with chromium dioxide honing compound, so the new edge will eventually smooth out a little into a convex edge of sorts anyway. Not that it needs sharpening now, little point in this being a "shaver", and no doubt a bit unsettling to test.
So far I've chopped through a 6-7 inch diam. section of the hard loquat log and split several 3-4 inch diam. sections with no problems what so ever. The wood has twisty grain and knots, so the splitting involves sticking the edge, and repeated slamming of the wood and the knife onto a chopping block or another log section. May take 10-15 times before splitting. I often used both arms with a hand-and-a-half grip, so that's something I suspect most knives wouldn't stand up to. It's hard to stick the edge very deep initially, and this is the kind of tough use that I suspect would tear out the edge of a lesser knife. The knife twisted out a few times with no damage at all. I didn't even try splitting with the original edge. I also split a couple by pounding on the spine with another piece of wood, but that takes a lot longer, since it doesn't use the weight of the knife. Pounding on the spine is the only way that I could split this stuff with my lighter khuks. Pounding an ordinary
hatchet with a hammer to split this stuff takes forever. Can't compare to a good axe or maul and wedge on this wood, I don't have them since wood is generally pretty scarce in my area. People buy little bundles of firewood for ridiculous prices at the supermarket. This tree that had to be taken down is a bit of a windfall. (yuck, bad pun)
I'll be using it more later this week and let you know if there are any problems, but so far it sure looks like you've given it a long and useful life.
------------------
*************
More chopping to be done, but don't expect me to chop up any car roofs or oil drums--don't have any in the back yard, and I don't think the landlord would approve anyway. I'll try to hone it up to shaving sharp or close to it, and see about fine edge retention, though that's probably more relevant on a lighter khuk.
